[Ads-l] Big shrink

[David K. Barnhart]

Added earlier this week to _Barnhart's Never-finished Political Dictionary
of the 21st Century_ (Second Edition):

 

 

shrink, n. {w}  Especially in the expression the big shrink.  See the
quotations for description.  Nonstandard (used in slang contexts dealing
especially with U.S. campaign politics)

 

[T]he campaigns are revising their strategic outlooks to account for a field
that is dramatically winnowed well before Iowa voters go to the
caucuses-perhaps to as few as eight candidates on Feb. 3.  Christopher
Cadelago, "Democratic field readies for the big shrink; The winnowing
process is about to begin," Politico (Google), July 8, 2019
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/08/2020-democratic-candidates-1399458

 

A key fact in the story of the big shrink is Ohio voters is that there used
to be 757,998 more registered voters eight years ago than there are today.
The Northwest territory state that once was a growing destination for people
looking for unbounded opportunity they couldn't find elsewhere is today
among the slowest growing states.  John Michael Spinelli, "The Big Shrink:
Receding Voter Rolls Not Going Unnoticed Or Unchallenged," Plunderbund.com
(a blog, Nexis), April 11, 2016, p not given

 

[1979?]  Semantic shifting (specialization): formed from shrink (BDE:
[before 899] about 1325), meaning "to draw back, recoil."  Possibly
influenced by "Boonie Bears: The Big Shrink," a Chinese cartoon comic
produced by Beijing Enlight Media and Tencent Pictures, released in early
2018, a cartoon series in which bears are accidentally shrunk.

 


------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org