ADS 2012 Word of the Year Nominations, Crossword Style

The American Dialect Society’s nominations for 2012 Word of the Year are out! And in -- a crossword puzzle! 

For spoilers... cheats... a complete list of the nominations, arranged by categories and including definitions, see the 2012 Words of the Year announcement on the American Dialect Society website. The vote takes place tonight, and Copyediting Editor Erin Brenner will be there. She’ll have the story for you here tomorrow morning. 

Use the definitions given by ADS as clues to fill in the puzzle. Entries of more than one word are run together in the puzzle with no spaces; hyphens are retained. 

ACROSS

3              inability to pull off dance moves (such as misspelling “YMCA”)

7              abbreviation for “high-definition,” used for things that could not be high-definition

8              slangy shortening and reduplication of “crazy”

9              slangy shortening of “feelings”

11           a man’s condescending explanation to a female audience

14           acronym for “You Only Live Once,” often used sarcastically or self-deprecatingly

16           metaphor of reinvention used by Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom

18           hyberbolic combining form for various catastrophes [also -(ma)geddon]

19           type of rape that Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed rarely results in pregnancy

27           policy of encouraging illegal immigrants to return voluntarily to their home countries

29           name originally used for the Windows 8 operating system

30           airline passengers who crowd around a gate waiting to board

31           the Mayan apocalypse predicted for Dec. 21, 2012 (alpaca + -lypse)

32           dandruff from one’s beard

DOWN

1              trendy style of Seoul’s Gangnam district, as used in a Korean pop song of the same name

2              large collections of digital information used for revealing behavioral insights

4              photo fad inspired by Clint Eastwood’s unscripted speech at the RNC

5              slang term originally referring to “urban divas” now used to mean “ghetto”

6              name given to Thanksgiving as a shopping day before Black Friday

10           when one’s stomach protrudes over ill-fitting pants (“belly done lop over the belt”)

11           legal recognition of same-sex marriage

12           attacking a woman for socially stigmatized sexual activity

13           acronym for “massive open online course”

15           continuing to follow a television show despite having an aversion to it

17           type of rape that Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed rarely results in pregnancy

20           an alcohol enema, used in college fraternity hazing rituals

21           names of candidates used for blends

22           term for Hurricane Sandy’s hybrid storm system (after Frankenstein’s monster)

23           threat of spending cuts and tax increases looming over end-of-year budget negotiations

24           an unusually large and destructive storm, such as Hurricane Sandy

25           portion of the population that does not pay federal income tax (as used by Romney)

26           mid-sized electronic device between a smartphone and a tablet

28           destroying existing business models

Answers to Doublets: Resolutions on the Brain

EVE > IVE > IRE > GRE > GEE > NEE > NEW

Image courtesy of CrosswordMan.