The nominees for ADS Word of the Year
7 January 2023
Yesterday, the American Dialect Society voted on its Word of the Year (WOTY) for the past year. It selected the suffix -ussy, derived from pussy (as in bussy = boy pussy). The ADS uses a loose definition of word in its selection; any lexical item, as well as emojis and other signs, qualify.
The PDF of the ADS press release, listing all the categories, nominees, and vote totals, is here. There are many WOTY processes conducted by many different organizations, but the ADS selection is the original, having been conducted for thirty-three years.
The ADS consists of (mostly) professional linguists and lexicographers, but the selection of WOTY is not an academically rigorous process. Unlike other organizations that have some sort of objective criteria (e.g., Merriam-Webster bases its choice on searches in its online dictionary), the ADS process is informal. The evening before the vote, a small, self-selected group meets and comes up with nominations in the various categories. The categories are mostly consistent from year to year, but special categories can be created if there are a cluster of words on a particular topic. The next night several hundred conference attendees vote on the nominees, and nominations can be made from the floor. The process is raucous and fun, but the results can be skewed in all sorts of ways and should not be taken as serious and deliberative pronouncements.
I’ve participated in the nomination and voting in past years but sat out this year. (If I have another reason to attend the conference, or if it is online as in the past few years, I take part.) My own Wordorigins.org selections for Words of the Year are here.
What follows are my observations on the nominees and choices. Like the WOTY voting itself, my opinions are not serious linguistic conclusions. Pretty much all the WOTY contests, no matter who conducts them, are simply entertainment for the lexically inclined among us.
As for the overall WOTY choice, I’m unfamiliar with -ussy and the process of -ussification, but I don’t frequent TikTok, which evidently is where the term thrives. I would have gone with quiet quitting, which I predict will have more staying power and which is more representative of the mood of the year. Quiet quitting did win the category of Most Useful/Most Likely to Succeed. I concur with that choice, although another nominee, nepo baby, was also a strong contender in my book. -ussy also took the prize in the Most Creative category.
The ADS selection for Political WOTY was Dark Brandon, the supposed sinister, alter ego of Joe Biden, a play on the right-wing catchphrase Let’s Go Brandon. Again, I would have to disagree. Dobbs, a reference to the misogynistic US Supreme Court decision eviscerating women’s rights, received the second-most votes, and I predict it will long outlast Dark Brandon.
The choice for Digital WOTY was the suffix -dle, taken from the name of lexical games patterned after Wordle (e.g., Heardle, Absurdle, and Lewdle). That’s not a bad choice; games like this were quite the fad in 2022, and it is productive and creative. But there were several strong contenders in this category, such as chronically online, touch grass (and antidote for being chronically online), and crypto rug pull. Any of these would have been worthy choices, too. Chief twit was also nominated, and while it certainly held sway over much of the online world this past year, the less said about Elon Musk the better.
It's giving X was the choice for Informal WOTY. It’s another one that I’m unfamiliar with. It comes out of drag culture, which I am not plugged into. But it seems like a worthy choice, especially since the other nominees in this category were lackluster.
ADS’s Euphemism of the Year is special military operation, Putin’s name for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I can’t disagree with this one. You don’t get more euphemistic than this.
The Snowclone/Phrasal Template of the Year went to not X, an ironic expression of mock horror or incredulity. This one is fine, and again I’m not familiar with it. (I’ve probably heard it but just didn’t register it.) I would have gone with X hits different, which garnered the second highest vote total, though.
Finally, Emoji of the Year went to the skull emoji 💀, used to express figurative death (e.g., from laughter or embarrassment). That’s a solid choice.
My biggest takeaway from this year’s choices is that I’m getting too old and too divorced from trends in popular culture. Most of the nominees were completely new to me. 💀
