Word of the year
The word(s) of the year, sometimes capitalized as Word(s) of the Year and abbreviated WOTY or WotY, refers to any of various assessments as to the most important word(s) or expression(s) in the public sphere during a specific year.
United States
Since 1991, the American Dialect Society (ADS) has designated one or more words or terms to be the "Word of the Year" in the United States.
This is in addition to its "Word of the 1990s" (web), "Word of the 20th Century" (jazz), "Word of the Past Millennium" (she), and "Word of the Decade (2000-2009)" (google as a verb). The society also selects words in other categories that vary from year to year, such as most original, most unnecessary, most outrageous and most likely to succeed.
A number of words chosen by the ADS are also on the lists of Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year and the Global Language Monitor.
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- 2002[2]: weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
- 2003[3]: metrosexual
- 2004[4]: red state, blue state, purple state (from the United States presidential election, 2004)
- 2005[5] : truthiness (popularized on The Colbert Report)
- 2006[6]: plutoed (demoted or devalued, as happened to the former planet Pluto)
- 2007[7]: subprime (an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment)
- 2008[8]: bailout (in the specific sense of the rescue by the government of companies on the brink of failure, including large players in the banking industry.)
- 2009[9]: tweet (noun, a short, timely message sent via the Twitter.com service, and verb, the act of sending such a message)
- 2010[10]: app (noun, an abbreviated form of application, a software program for a computer or phone operating system)
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2010 selections
After a run-off with "nom," app was named the 2010 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society. [11]
- Most Useful: nom (Onomatopoetic form connoting eating, esp. pleasurably. Can be used as an interjection or noun to refer to delicious food.)
- Most Creative: prehab (Preemptive enrollment in a rehab facility to prevent relapse of an abuse problem.)
- Most Unnecessary: refudiate (Blend of refute and repudiate used by Sarah Palin on Twitter.)
- Most Outrageous: gate rape (Pejorative term for invasive new airport pat-down procedure.)
- Most Euphemistic: kinetic event (Pentagon term for violent attacks on troops in Afghanistan.)
- Most Likely to Succeed: trend (Verb: to exhibit a burst of online buzz.)
- Least Likely to Succeed: culturomics (Research project from Google analyzing the history of language and culture.)
- Fan Words: gleek (A fan of the TV show “Glee” [Glee + geek])
2009 selections
Along with tweet being named Word of the Year for 2009, the American Dialect Society named google (a generic form of "Google," meaning "to search the Internet") as its word of the decade.[12]
- Most Useful: fail (A noun or interjection used when something is egregiously unsuccessful. Usually written as “FAIL!”)
- Most Creative: Dracula sneeze (Covering one’s mouth with the crook of one’s elbow when sneezing, seen as similar to popular portrayals of the vampire Dracula, in which he hides the lower half of his face with a cape.)
- Most Unnecessary: sea kittens (fish [according to PETA])
- Most Outrageous: death panel (A supposed committee of doctors and/or bureaucrats who would decide which patients were allowed to receive treatment, ostensibly leaving the rest to die.)
- Most Euphemistic: hike the Appalachian trail (To go away to have sex with one’s illicit lover. Follows on a statement by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who went to Argentina to visit his mistress.)
- Most Likely to Succeed: twenty-ten (A pronunciation of the year 2010, as opposed to saying “two thousand ten” or “two thousand and ten.” [twenty- as prefix until 2099])
- Least Likely to Succeed: name of the decade 2000-2009, such as Naughties, Aughties, Oughties, etc.
2008 selections
The chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society, Grant Barrett, said "When you vote for bailout, I guess you’re really voting for ‘hope’ and ‘change,’ too. Though you’d think a room full of pointy-headed intellectuals could come up with something more exciting.” In addition to the overall Word of the Year, the American Dialect Society named other top words of 2008 [13]
- Most Useful: Barack Obama (both names as combining forms)
- Most Creative: recombobulation area (An area at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee in which passengers that have just passed through security screening can get their clothes and belongings back in order.)
- Most Unnecessary: moofing (From “mobile out of office,” meaning working on the go with a laptop and cell phone. Created by a PR firm.)
- Most Outrageous: terrorist fist jab (A knuckle-to-knuckle fist bump, or “dap,” traditionally performed between two black people as a sign of friendship, celebration or agreement. It was called the “terrorist fist jab” by the newscaster E. D. Hill, formerly of Fox News.)
- Most Euphemistic: scooping technician (A person whose job it is to pick up dog poop.)
- Most Likely to Succeed: shovel-ready (Used to describe infrastructure projects that can be started quickly, when funds become available.)
- Least Likely to Succeed: PUMA (An acronym for Party Unity My Ass, used by Democrats who were disaffected after Hillary Clinton failed to secure a sufficient number of delegates. It was later said to stand for People United Means Action.)
- Election-Related Word: maverick (A person who is beholden to no one. Widely used by the Republican Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates, John McCain and Sarah Palin. Also in the adjectival form mavericky, used by Tina Fey portraying Palin on Saturday Night Live.)
The Global Language Monitor on December 1 announced[14] that change was its top word of 2008, followed by bailout and Obamamania. It noted that if it included 'obama-' as a root word or word stem, Obama- in its many forms (ObamaMania, Obamamentum, Obmanomics, Obamacize, Obamanation, etc.), would have overtaken both change, and bailout for the top spot. It also named financial tsunami as the top phrase, and Barack Obama as the top name.[15]
New World Dictionary has announced its short list for 2008's Word of the Year [16] and is inviting public opinion on the following final five contenders:
- leisure sickness (noun): a purported syndrome, not universally recognized by psychologists, by which some people (typically characterized as workaholics) are more likely to report feeling ill during weekends and vacations than when working[17]
- overshare (verb): to divulge excessive personal information, as in a blog or broadcast interview, prompting reactions ranging from alarmed discomfort to approval[18]
- cyberchondriac (noun): a hypochondriac who imagines that he or she has a particular disease based on medical information gleaned through the Internet[19]
- selective ignorance (noun): the practice of selectively ignoring distracting, irrelevant, or otherwise unnecessary information received, such as through e-mail and news reports.[20]
- youthanasia (noun): “ … the controversial practice of performing a battery of age-defying medical procedures to end lifeless skin and wrinkles; advocated by some as a last-resort measure to put the chronically youth-obsessed out of their misery … Think of it as mercy lifting.” —Armand Limnander, New York Times[21]
Webster's New World Dictionary's final Word of the Year selection will be announced via streaming video by Editor-in-Chief Mike Agnes on December 1, 2008.
The New Oxford American Dictionary selected hypermiling, a term used in North America that refers to a set of techniques used to maximize fuel economy, as its Word of the Year for 2008.[22]
2007 selection
"Subprime" was a popular choice for the 2007 word of the year and received over two-thirds of the votes cast. The meaning of "subprime" changed during the last quarter of the 20th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in 1976 a subprime loan was one with a below-prime interest rate; it wasn't until 1993 that "subprime" began referring to the rating of the borrower.[23]
Other contenders were:[24]
- green- "designates environmental concern, as in greenwashing"
- surge "an increase in troops in a war zone", as in the Iraq War troop surge of 2007
- Facebook all parts of speech
- waterboarding "an interrogation technique in which the subject is immobilized and doused with water to simulate drowning"
- Googlegänger "a person with your name who shows up when you google yourself" (portmanteau of Google and Doppelgänger)
- wide stance, "to have a —": "To be hypocritical or to express two conflicting points of view" (in reference to Senator Larry Craig after his 2007 arrest at an airport)
2006 selection
"Plutoed" beat "climate canary" in a run-off vote for the 2006 word of the year. A "climate canary" is something whose poor health indicates a looming environmental catastrophe.
"It was good that the society focused on a genuine scientific concern, though I believe the nomination came in from outer space," said committee chairman Professor Wayne Glowka.
Other words in the running for 2006 were:
- flog - "an advertisement disguised as a blog or web log"
- The Decider - a political catch phrase said by former United States President George W. Bush
- prohibited liquids - "fluids that cannot be transported by passengers on airplanes"
- macaca - "an American citizen treated as an alien"; "macaca" was also the Global Language Monitor's most politically incorrect word for 2006.[25]
Similar endeavors
A Word a Year
Since 2004, Susie Dent, an English lexicographer has published a column, "A Word a Year", in which she chooses a single word from each of the last 101 years to represent preoccupations of the time. Susie Dent notes that the list is subjective.[26][27][28] Each year she gives a completely different set of words.
Since Susie Dent works for the Oxford University Press, her words of choice are often incorrectly referred to as "Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year".
Top Words, Phrases and Names of the Year
Since 2000, the Global Language Monitor (GLM) has been selecting the Top Ten Words, Phrases and Names of the Year.[29] To select these words and phrases it claims to use a statistical analysis of language usage in the worldwide print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the Blogosphere, including Social media, though several linguists and lexicographers have charged that its mathematical methodologies are flawed.
GLM announced its Top Words of the Year for 2011 on November 11, 2011. "'Occupy’ is the Top Word, ‘Arab Spring’ the Top Phrase and ‘Steve Jobs’ the Top Name of 2011 in its annual global survey of the English language. Occupy was followed by deficit, fracking, drone, and non-veg. Kummerspeck, haboob, 3Q, Trustafarians, and (the other) 99 rounded out the Top 10.[30],
Germany
In Germany, the Wort des Jahres has been selected since 1972 (i.e., for the year of 1971 and up) by the Society of the German Language.[31]
In addition, the Unwort des Jahres (Unword of the Year or No-no Word of the Year) has been nominated since 1991, as the word in the public speech which is deemed inappropriate and an insult to human dignity.[32] See "Überfremdung" for an example.
Many words are sometimes nominated for both titles.
See also
Further reading
- John Ayto, "A Century of New Words", Series: Oxford Paperback Reference (2007) ISBN 0-19-921369-0
- John Ayto, "Twentieth Century Words
References
External links