Job Discussion Forums

[nomad soul]

10 Previous Word of the Year Candidates That Didn�t Catch On
by Adrienne Crezo | November 28, 2011
(Source: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/27ay57/www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/97070)

Last week Oxford Dictionaries named �squeezed middle� the Global Word of the Year,* edging out terms like �clicktivism,� �fracking� and �tiger mother.� A quick look through past lists like these tells us Words of the Year don�t always stand the test of time. Here are ten examples:

1. Bushlips: Anyone who remembers George H. W. Bush�s �read my lips� speech from 1988 probably also remembers that in 1990, the new president raised several taxes as part of a budget balancing agreement. The outrage resulted in the term bushlips, which is interchangeable with bull***t, apparently.

2. (To) pluto: Poor Pluto. After our ninth planet�s recategorization in 2006, when something was demoted or devalued, it was plutoed. �I used to be the manager, but I got plutoed. Is this for here or to go?� Five years after topping the American Dialect Society (ADS) list, this one still hasn�t caught on. Time for a retroactive plutoing of pluto?

3. Meatspace: OED lexicographer Susie Dent chose �meatspace� as representative of 1995. If you�re curious, meatspace is the real world, as opposed to cyberspace.

4. Intexticated: In 2009 this word, which means �to be distracted by texting while driving,� was shortlisted by Oxford Dictionaries, but ultimately defeated by unfriend.

5. Phelpsian: Remember when Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics? So do we. What�s not so memorable is the ensuing use of Phelpsian as an adjective, as in �Phelpsian Pheat,� or an achievement �excellent in the fashion of Michael Phelps.� You�re probably better off sticking with the decidedly older Herculean.

6. Lawn mullet: Business in the front, party in the back�assuming �business� means �neatly manicured� and �party� means �unmowed.�

7. Recombobulation area: The ADS winner of Most Creative in 2008, the �recombobulation area� is the place in which passengers are allowed to recover their belongings and composure after an airport security check�a procedure not-so-affectionately dubbed �gate rape,� a term voted 2010�s Most Outrageous by ADS.

8. Kummerspeck: Literally �grief fat� or �grief bacon,� Kummerspeck is a German word that describes weight gain from emotional overeating (we may have had a hand in this one). The word has potential, since there�s no direct English equivalent, but we think �grief bacon� is a bit catchier. Even so, Kummerspeck was shortlisted by Global Language Monitor as one of the Top Words of 2011; �Occupy� topped that list this year.

9. (To) newt: Another verb coined from political events, newting is the practice of making aggressive changes as a newcomer, from Speaker Newt Gingrich�s Contract With America in 1995. That year, to newt tied with the more useful worldwide web and its derivatives, WWW and the web.

10. Millennium bug: You probably know millennium bug by its more famous moniker, Y2K, but in 1997 this was the name for a potential global disaster caused by the two-digit year format, which threatened to disrupt banking and transit systems at the stroke of the new year. (We survived.) Unsurprisingly, Y2K topped the ADS list in 1999.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Anyone want to bring any of these back? What are some words you hope do (or don�t) work their way into everyday use?

* I know what you�re thinking. Here�s how Oxford University Press explained it: �From a dictionary-maker�s point of view, a two-word expression is called a �compound� and is treated as one word [a 'headword'] in the dictionary. This is not the first time that a two-word expression has been selected as our WOTY. In 2010, the UK Word of the Year was �big society.��

Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/108360#ixzz1gh8MUAwz
(End of article)

[geaaronson]

I wish I could remember the one Sarah Palin used. It was the only sign of intelligence that she could muster. It was a neologism her advisor had cooked up.

[nomad soul]

[geaaronson]

I am a bit more openminded about both words. I happen to like both of them, no matter which imbeciliated concoducted them. Now my two, however, are simply atrocious.