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What will be the 2016 word of the year?
I was watching a TED Talk the other day by English language teacher and historian Anne Curzan called What makes a word real? It’s a very interesting 17 minutes, at least to an old English teacher like me. I encourage you to watch it, but I only want to talk about one small thing she mentioned: The American Dialect Society chooses a Word of the Year at their January get-together each year. They’ve done this for 26 years. However, it’s not just single words that are considered:
Single words, phrases, compounds, catch phrases, hashtags, emoji, and other types of brief written or spoken communication are accepted as nominations.
Here’s a list of winners (with example or definition where helpful):
2015 — they, used as a singular, gender-neutral, non-binary personal pronoun (Example: The person was confused about their gender identity so they underwent counseling.)
2014 — #blacklivesmatter
2013 — because, replacing because of (Example: That’s true because reasons.)
2012 — hashtag
2011 — occupy
2010 — app
2009 — tweet
2008 — bailout
2007 — subprime
2006 — Plutoed
2005 — truthiness
2004 — red state, blue state, purple state
2003 — metrosexual
2002 — WMD
2001 — 9/11
2000 — chad
Also in 2000: Word of the Decade — web; Word of the Century — jazz; Word of the Millennium — she.
1999 — Y2K
1998 — e- (prefix short for electronic, as in e-mail or e-commerce)
1997 — millennium bug or Y2K bug or Y2K problem
1996 — mom (as in soccer mom)
1995 — (tie) World Wide Web and newt (meaning to make aggressive changes as a newcomer)
1994 — (tie) cyber and morph
1993 — information superhighway
1992 — Not!
1991 — the mother of all...
1990 — bushlips (insincere political rhetoric)
In addition to the Word of the Year, ADS also selects a Most Likely to Succeed (notebook PC in 1991) and various other categories including Most Original (prebuttal in 1996), Most Euphemistic (compassionate conservative in 1999), Most Outrageous (santorum, byproduct of anal sex in 2004), and Most Unnecessary (refudiate, blend of refute and repudiate used by Sarah Palin on Twitter in 2010). These are just a few examples.
So that brings us to today’s question. Personally, I think the 2016 Word of the Year will be WTF?, but that’s just me. How about you? What do you think will be the 2016 word of the year?
As always, this is Open Thread Time!
LET'S BUILD IN-REAL-LIFE COMMUNITIES!
Our team is here to provide support and guidance to new and existing volunteer leaders of each regional and state group, helping them with recruiting, organizing and executing social and action events. We invite you to join in this effort to build our community. There are many ways to pitch in. If there isn't a group to join near you, please start one.
The orange pinpoints are the location of each organized group of Daily Kos readers. If you'd like to join a group, click on a point and a box will pop up showing contact links. If you'd like to start a group, contact navajo for instructions.
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