Boaty McBoatface

Coined by BBC Radio Jersey presenter James Hand in 2016 as a jocular response to an online poll held by the British government to name a new polar research ship. Despite the fact that "Boaty McBoatface" won decisively, receiving 33% of the overall vote (over three times as many as the second most favoured option), the organizers of the poll ultimately named the ship after British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough. The name was instead given to one of the remote-controlled submarines (pictured) carried aboard the ship.^[1]

The name itself may be analyzed as boat +‎ -y (“diminutive suffix”) Mc- (“a patronymic used to form common Irish and Scottish names”) +‎ boat +‎ face. Possibly influenced by "Hooty McOwlface", a name given to an adopted owl which went viral on the Internet in 2012.^[2]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbəʊtiː məkˈbəʊtfeɪs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈboʊdi mɪkˈboʊtfeɪs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: Boa‧ty Mc‧Boat‧face

Boaty McBoatface

1. An autonomous underwater vehicle launched in 2017, currently in service with the British Antarctic Survey to study the polar oceans.
   • , volume 609, column 617:

     I am proud to say that the royal Arctic survey ship will be named after David Attenborough. There was strong support for Boaty McBoatface. I think the submarine on the boat will be named Boaty McBoatface but, quite rightly, Attenborough will take top billing.]

Boaty McBoatface (third-person singular simple present Boaty McBoatfaces, present participle Boaty McBoatfacing, simple past and past participle Boaty McBoatfaced)

1. (neologism) To hijack or troll a vote, especially one held online, by supporting a joke option.
   • 2016 May 3, @GeorgeWept, Twitter‎, archived from the original on 2022-12-13:

     Trump is Boaty McBoatfacing the presidential election.

   • 2020 October 28, Jennifer Finney Boylan, “Trump and the Boaty McBoatfacing of America”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-10-01:

     Mountain Dew got McBoatfaced when it asked the internet to name its new flavor. The internet — largely driven by members of the message boards Reddit and 4chan — obliged by naming the new flavor "Hitler Did Nothing Wrong."

   • 2022 February 28, Sonny Bunch, “98: Is the Video Game Movie Curse Broken?”, in The Bulwark‎, archived from the original on 2022-12-07:

     On this week's episode, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) ask if the Oscars made a big mistake by allowing a potential Boaty McBoatfacing situation by opening up voting to the Twitter-based masses.

   • 2022 March 28, Sarah Marrs, “The Chaoscars”, in Lainey Gossip‎, archived from the original on 2022-11-19:

     The Oscars got Boaty McBoatfaced and that's like, the sixth worst headline of the night, that's how bad the show was.

   • 2022 March 29, Stuart Heritage, “If it takes Will Smith's slap to make people watch the Oscars, is it doomed?”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-11-19:

     Some of the time was ceded to "fan favourite" movies voted for by the public, but the segment was inevitably Boaty McBoatfaced by a handful of hardcore Zack Snyder zealots, which meant that Hollywood's most prestigious night had to grind to a halt so that everyone could watch the Flash enter the Speed Force.

   • 2022 November 11, Tristan McKeough, “Boaty McBoatface”, in The Abingtonian‎, archived from the original on 2022-11-19:

     There have actually been numerous other cases of McBoatfacing occurring since the original in 2016.

• McBoatface

• Boaty McBoatface on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Sir David Attenborough § Naming poll on Wikipedia.Wikipedia