Here's an interesting story from the Globe and Mail: Dialect society selects Word of the Year. Excerpt:
Pluto is finally getting some respect — from wordsmiths.
“Plutoed” was chosen 2006 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society at its annual meeting.
To “pluto” is “to demote or devalue someone or something” much like what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto did not meet its definition of a planet.
“Our members believe the great emotional reaction of the public to the demotion of Pluto shows the importance of Pluto as a name,” said society President Cleveland Evans. “We may no longer believe in the Roman god Pluto, but we still have a sense of personal connection with the former planet.”
“Plutoed” won in a runoff against “climate canary,” defined as “an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on the horizon.”
Other words in the running: murse (man's purse), flog (a fake blog that promotes products) and macaca (an American citizen treated as an alien).
Former Senator George Allen, a Republican who sought re-election last year, was comfortably ahead in polls until August, when he referred to the son of Indian immigrants as macaca, regarded by some as a racial slur. Mr. Allen lost to Democrat Jim Webb.
I don't know how many of such terms will last another year, but it's fun to see how new words pop up and spread around the world.
Recent Comments