10 January 2011
Update: a video is now available of the final discussion points and the vote for word of the year. The sound quality is pretty bad, but it gives a flavor of what the discussion is like at these meetings.
[Hat tip: Ben Zimmer]
8 January:
On 7 January, the American Dialect Society dubbed app, an abbreviation for application and a software program for a computer or phone, as the word of the year for 2010. App is not a new word, the OED has citations for the word dating back to 1985, but the explosion of usage of smartphones and tablet computers, like the iPhone and iPad, with the accompanying marketing force of companies that make and sell them propelled the word to the forefront in the past year. The ADS holds the annual word of the year vote at its annual meeting in January, which was held in Pittsburgh this year.
Also at the meeting, which is held in conjunction with the annual Linguistic Society of America meeting, the American Name Society decided that Eyafjalljökul was its name of the year for 2010. Eyafjalljökul is the Icelandic volcano that erupted beginning in March of last year, and by April the resulting ash cloud grounded most European and transatlantic air traffic.
The 121-year-old ADS is a organization of academics, professional lexicographers, and lay people that is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America and of other languages and dialects. The word of the year vote is not a serious academic exercise, but rather intended as amusing, but informed, retrospective on the terms made popular over the past year.
Runners up for the ADS word of the year were:
• nom, onomatopoetic form connoting eating, esp. pleasurably.
• junk, a noun and adjective used in a variety of contexts, such as junk shot (nickname for one of the attempts to fix BP oil spill), junk status (Greece’s credit rating), and don’t touch my junk (a phrase uttered in protest against a newly instituted TSA pat-down procedure at airport security checkpoints).
• Wikileaks, as proper noun, common noun, and verb, from the name of the organization that published classified US diplomatic cables in 2010.
• trend, a verb meaning to exhibit a burst of online buzz.
The ADS also votes for words in subcategories. The word voted “most useful” for 2010 was the aforementioned nom. Runners up in the category were:
• fat-finger, a verb meaning to mistype, as by accidentally striking more than one key on a keyboard/pad.
• junk, as above.
• vuvuzela, a South African plastic trumpet used by fans during the FIFA World Cup matches.
The “most creative” term for 2010 was prehab, meaning preemptive enrollment in a rehab facility to prevent relapse of a drug or alcohol problem. Runners up were:
• -sauce, an intensive suffix, as in awesome-sauce “great” and lame-sauce “stupid.”
• spillion, an immense number, especially of gallons of oil in the Gulf spill. Also spillionaire, person made rich by money from BP’s spill cleanup fund.
• phoenix firm, a troubled company that reemerges under a new name.
The winner of the “most unnecessary” category was refudiate, a blend of refute and repudiate used by Sarah Palin on Twitter. Runners up were:
• ironic moustache, facial hair worn as a statement of retro hipsterdom.
• star whacker, an imagined celebrity killer (alleged by actor Randy Quaid and his wife Evi).
• hipsterdom, the state of being hip beyond all recognition. So hip you’re unhip.
The ADS voted gate rape as the “most outrageous” word of 2010. It’s a pejorative term for the new TSA pat-down procedure. Runners up were:
• terror baby, a alleged baby born to a terrorist family on U.S. soil in order to establish citizenship for the child so it can commit acts of terrorism decades hence.
• bed intruder, a perpetrator of a home invasion in Huntsville, Ala., made famous by a viral video.
The “most euphemistic” word of 2010 was kinetic event, a Pentagon term for a violent attack or explosion. Others in the running were:
• corn sugar, the Corn Refiners Association’s rebranding of high fructose corn syrup.
• enhanced pat-down, the TSA’s term for its controversial new frisking procedure.
• bed intruder, as above.
The ADS voted the aforementioned verb trend as the “most likely to succeed” word of 2010. Other vote-getters in the category were:
• hacktivism, using computer hacking skills to commit acts of political or social activism.
• -pad, a combining form used for the iPad and other tablet computers (ViewPad, WindPad, etc.).
• telework, US federal government term for work done by an employee away from the office.
The society considered words that, while popular for a time, were unlikely in their view to gain a lasting foothold in the language. Culturomics was voted the “least likely to succeed, the name of a research project using Google to analyze the history of language and culture. Others in the category were:
• fauxhemian, the winner of a Gawker poll to replace the term hipster.
• skyaking, jumping out of a plane in a kayak.
• top kill / top hat / junk shot, nicknames for various failed techniques to fix the BP oil spill.
When it spots a number of new terms in a particular category, the ADS sometimes creates a special category to acknowledge their presence in the language that year. Such a category for 2010 was “fan words.” The winner was gleek, a fan of the TV show Glee. Runners up were:
• belieber, a fan of pop singer Justin Bieber, a blend of Bieber + believer.
• little monster, a fan of pop singer Lady Gaga, so called by the singer herself.
• Twihard, a fan of the Twilight books and movies.
• Yat Dat, a native-born fan of the New Orleans Saints.
The group attempted to consider a category of election terms, but concluded that all the terms were “losers,” and abandoned the effort. The terms that were under consideration included:
• Aqua Buddha, deity in collegiate scandal involving candidate, now US senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul.
• mama grizzly, Sarah Palin’s term for a fiercely conservative female candidate.
• man up, exhortation to be responsible or “act like a man,” used by Sharron Angle against Harry Reid in Nevada Senate race.
• Obamacare, pejorative term for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.
