Last weekend, the editors at the Australian Macquarie Dictionary announced their choice for 2017 Word of the Year. They chose milkshake duck, “a person who is initially viewed positively by the media but is then discovered to have something questionable about them which causes a sharp decline in … [Read more...]
American Name Society Announces 2017 Names of the Year
The American Name Society, a group founded in 1951 to promote the study of onomastics, gathered in Salt Lake City on January 5 to, among other things, vote for Names of the Year. Here are the results: Name of the Year: Rohingya The Rohingya are a Muslim faction predominantly in western Myanmar and … [Read more...]
Collins Dictionaries Top Ten Words of the Year
Word-of-the-year season is upon us! Last week, Oxford Dictionaries' editors announced post-truth as their word of the year, but they weren't the first. The editors at Collins Dictionaries posted their top ten words of the year on Thursday, November 3. Collins being a British dictionary, its … [Read more...]
Oxford Dictionaries Chooses “Post-Truth” as Its Word of the Year
On Thursday, Oxford Dictionaries announced post-truth is its Word of the Year (WOTY) for 2016. post-truth (adj.): relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. In a year of major political … [Read more...]
Follow #WOTY14 for Top Words, Hashtags of 2014
Many different Words of the Year are selected by dictionaries and other organizations, but the culmination of this annual examination of language and culture is tonight: The American Dialect Society chooses the 2014 Word of the Year at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time in Portland. Theirs is the most … [Read more...]
Grammatical Novelty is WOTY; Selfie and Twerk Draw Ire
An exciting word-of-the-year season closed last week with the somewhat surprising selection of because as the American Dialect Society 2013 Word of the Year in a usage no doubt destined for banishment by the Lake Superior State University banished words list next year. You might think back to … [Read more...]
Nominees Set for WOTY Categories; Whither Twerk?
The American Dialect Society may seem like an erudite group, largely made up as it is of people who actually chose to study linguistics. But the discussions during this evening’s Word of the Year voting should be anything but staid. The debate is open to anyone who can fit into the conference room … [Read more...]
WOTY Season Culminates Next Weekend
The American Dialect Society and the Linguistic Society of America will set up shop at the Minneapolis Hilton next week and discuss some fascinating minutiae in language. Members of the ADS will start with a talk Thursday on "The Canadian short vowels in motion" and end on Saturday with "Regional … [Read more...]