Last week I attended the annual Word of the Year competition sponsored by the American Dialect Society. It was my second year participating. I am not sure how I
got invited, and I think it might generally be in-person rather than on Zoom, in which case I wouldn’t be able to go. I really enjoy it. The American Dialect Society has been choosing a Word of the Year since the 1990s.
Some dictionaries also name a word of the year. The word of the year is generally the word that has had the most impact that year. A word that signifies the year. It is not necessarily a new word. The American Dialect Society has ten categories for Word of the Year– sort of like the Academy Awards.
When you get the invitation to attend, you are also invited to submit some words you think should be considered. Then, I believe, a small committee of word people gets together to get each category down to four to six entries. At the Zoom event, the words in each category are presented. The audience members can then raise their hands to give an opinion on why or why not a word should be selected. Then a poll is put up on the screen with the four to six entries, and we vote. There were nearly 400 people present this time. If no one word (or phrase) gets a majority, there is a runoff between the top two.
P.S. I felt really old because many of the words I had never heard of!
Here are the categories and winners (and what I voted for):
Political Word of the Year:
- The Big Lie
- Critical Race Theory (CRT)
- insurrection
- mandate
I voted for insurrection. Insurrection won. The Big Lie came in second.
Digital Word of the Year
- bones day/no bones day (from Noodles the dog on Tik Tok)
- #FreeBritney
- horny jail
- parasocial
- girl boss
I voted for bones day/no bones day. #Free Britney won. Para social came in second.
Pandemic Word of the Year
- boosted
- breakthrough
- Delta/Omricon
- long Covid
- variant
- vax/vaxx
- flurona (added by one of the facilitators last minute)
I voted for variant. Boosted won. Variant came in second.
Financial/Economic Word of the Year
- The Great Resignation
- NFT (non-fungible token)
- SPA (special-purpose acquisition companies)
- stimmy (short for stimulus)
- stonk (deliberate misspelling of stock)
- supply chain
I voted for supply chain. Supply chain won. The Great Resignation came in second.
Informal Word of the Year
- cheugy (used by Gen Z to poke fun at millennials)
- down bad (desperate for sex)
- flop era (unsuccessful period for a pop star)
- yassify (putting filters to a photo to make it into a cartoon)
I voted for yassify. Yassify won. Cheugy came in second.
Euphemism of the Year
- Election integrity (voter suppression)
- glizzy
- Let’s Go Brandon (F*** Biden)
- TFG (The Former Guy, used by those who don’t want to say trump’s name, including Biden)
- unalive (suicide, or sometimes just death)
I voted for Let’s Go Brandon. Unalive won. Elation integrity came in second.
Most Creative Word of the Year
- chin diaper (masks worn below the nose)
- copium (combination of cope and opium)
- core (??? Beats me)
- Fauci ouchie
I voted for chin diaper. Fauci ouchie won. Chin diaper came in second.
Most Likely to Succeed
- endemic
- mid (Gen Z slang for average)
- NFT
- sigma male (not alpha, but almost)
- shrinkflation
- antiwork
- The Great Resignation
I voted for endemic. Antiwork won. The Great Resignation came in second.
Most Useful Word of the Year
- bussin’ (extremely good, such as food)
- hard pants (work clothes, as opposed to working at home clothes with elastic waists – soft pants)
- tone indicator (emojs that help illustrate the tone of a text)
- vibe (means the same as it always did)
I voted for hard pants. Hard pants won. Vibe came in second.
All Around Word of the Year – The Big One!
- The Big Lie
- The Great Resignation
- Insurrection
- antiwork
- long Covid
- Omicron
- variant
- vax/vaxx
I voted for insurrection. Insurrection won. Vax/Vaxx came in second.
I think when I suggested words on my invitation, I suggested insurrection, variant…and one or two more that I don’t remember.
Webster’s Word of the Year: Vaccine
Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year: Vax
More information about the American Dialect Society
Re: not capitalizing Trump: I hate, hate, HATE when people insert politics into thoroughly non-political contexts. It is obnoxious and self-centered.
Thanks for your comment. I disagree. You are likely a trumper.
You are incorrect. I am a registered Democrat who voted for Biden and Clinton in the last two elections.
I apologize for my assumption. And I am a lifelong Democrat who does not believe trump deserves to have his name capitalized and that he rigged the 2016 election as well as trying t rig the 2020.
Hi Arlene,
In response to your June 18 reply to my initial comment: No need to apologize! I find that people frequently purport to be making decisions based on objective criteria, but they are actually advancing their partisan beliefs. For example, the Republicans were “objectively” aginst the fillibuster when they had a majority, and now they are “objectively” for it. Of course, the reverse is true for the Democrats. In fact, I’ve seen old videos of Sen. Schumer fervently defending the fillibuster when the Democrats were in the minority!
So your assumption that I was merely pretending to be sincere, but was actually just advancing my poitical preferences, was a pretty good bet, even though it happened to be wrong in this case.
One question arising from your response: If use of the lower case is meant to express animus or disrespect, and use of capitalization is meant to communicate respect or favor, what is your opinion of the practice of capitalizing “black” but not “white?” It seems that the NY Times and just about everybody else does it these days.
PS- that last question is not meant to be a troll or put you on the spot. If you feel more comfortable deleteing it, please do so.
Thanks,
Jonathan
If black or white is used as a color, obviously it is not capped. However, if it is used as a race, I would cap either one. Probably fine line there, though. And Asian is a race perhaps, but also a place, so …but I can say that whichever way you do it, it seems wrong.
Thanks for this–it was fun. There were quite a few words I hadn’t even heard of, especially under the “informal” category. And you seem to have a pretty good average when it comes to choosing winning words!
It was a fun event! I know. There were some of us who wrote in the chat how we were too old to even know some of the words! Yeah, I did pretty well! Thanks for the comment!