Word of the Year Lists
Word of the Year lists
begin to sprout this time of year. Many of them are banal, the product of trend-focused minds or curmudgeonly prejudices. One of them that is actually interesting is
Merriam-Webster’s list. Rather than being based on ephemeral categories such as
new words or quirky words or words detested by curmudgeons, M-W’s list records the top ten words actually looked
up on their web site in any given year. That is useful information. You’ll find
this year’s list at http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/2012words.htm
The other list that I
find interesting is the one posted by the American Dialect Society after a
membership vote at its annual January conference. I find it useful because it
comes from professional wordsmiths. In addition to overall word of the year, ADS
has many subcategories, including most useful, most creative, most unnecessary,
most outrageous, most euphemistic, most likely to succeed, and least likely to
succeed.
Some of the words
submitted to the nominating list so far include vulture capitalist, the
combining form crypto- (as in cryptomuslim, cryptocapitalist, cryptoliberal),
Rick Perry moment, twitterverse, spaghetti model, and my personal favorite,
butt-chugging (an alcohol enema).
Available from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts
Dictionary, 2nd edition
Nook edition
Nook edition
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