Bachelor’s Handbag, a roast chicken takeaway makes it to Australian lexicon as ‘Word of the Year’

Takeaway chicken shops are found all over Australian suburbs. AFP

New Delhi: A roast chicken takeaway wrapped in a plastic bag, aptly called the Bachelor’s Handbag, has been voted the Australian people’s choice new word of the year, the Macquarie Dictionary revealed on Tuesday.

With just a month to go for the world to step into the New Year, the Australian English dictionary defined the term Bachelor’s Handbag as a noun. It showcased it as a “noun colloquial (humorous) denoting a takeaway roast chicken”.

The origin of the word stems from the fact that such a chicken requires no further preparation or cooking before consumption, so it is in fact an easy meal preferred by a single person, the dictionary said. The roast chicken meal often comes wrapped in a plastic bag with a handle with which one can carry it home. The entire package resembles a handbag and hence the name Bachelor’s Handbag

The catchy phrase, which has topped a recent online vote, combines the Australian people’s love for chicken and their interest in wordplay.

Takeaway chicken shops are found all over Australian suburbs and very few pub menus do not have either chicken schnitzel or chicken parm (Parmigiana) on offer.

Macquarie Dictionary managing editor Victoria Morgan told news agency AFP, “We have got a fair bit of feedback that some people call it the tradie’s (tradesperson’s) handbag or the bachelor’s briefcase.”

“Then of course there’s that little bit of backlash – but I think a lot of people may have missed the point a bit – you know, with someone saying: ‘Oh, I have a family, you don’t have to be a bachelor’. No, no, this is just a name,” Morgan clarified.

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