Is Thuma Mina your phrase of the year? Or is it Commission of Inquiry?

The contenders are in for South Africa’s Word of the Year 2018. They’ve been debated by the officials, but what do we, the folks on South Africa’s social media platforms think?

Here’s the shortlist:

1.Thuma Mina

2.Land expropriation without compensation

3.Commission of Inquiry

Last year, when this campaign was first launched by the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), the South African word, or rather phrase, of the year was – state capture.

PanSALB’s Angelina Netshiheni says: “The SA Word of the Year need not have been coined in the past 12 months. To qualify for consideration we look for the evidence that its usage was on everybody’s lips and that its usage increased significantly across a board range of media.”

Some of the other phrases that were in the running include sha sha, Kuzobalit and on fleek.

The final decision on word of the year is being made now by a media analysis company that is seeing which of the three contenders has made the most noise across the media.

International Dictionary Day is on October 16, in honour of Noah Webster’s birthday, he is dubbed “the father of the American dictionary”.