Word of the Year

Words, Words, Words

Different organizations have voted for different words as “Word of the Year 2012”.

The American Dialect Society chose “hashtag”, the well-known symbol used in Twitter. Surely, that is not surprising, knowing the increasing popularity of the social network and the networking and sharing tools it provides. Still, for some, the choice was somewhat unexpected – leading New York Times blogger Jennifer Schuessler to refer to the word as a “dark horse” winner. Other top candidates, including acronyms and phrases, were “YOLO” short for “you only live once”, “fiscal cliff”, “marriage equality” referring to legalization of gay marriage, and “Gangnam style”. Of these, “YOLO” was voted least likely to succeed, contrary to “marriage equality”, rated most likely to. Interestingly, among the categories was one for the most euphemistic expression, where “self-deportation” was the winner, meaning “policy of encouraging illegal immigrants to return voluntarily to their home countries” (that is, by making life difficult for them rather than officially expelling them).

The Merriam Webster Words of the Year, the two most looked-up words in 2012 were “capitalism” and “socialism”, probably prompted by the year’s U.S. elections, including the healthcare debate; people tended to look up the words together, said Peter Sokolowski, the dictionary’s editor-at-large to CBS news (“’Socialism’ and ‘Capitalism’ Revealed as 2012 ‘Word of the Year’ ”) – a bit like looking up “depression” and “mania” together one might reckon! The 2011 Webster word of the year was “austerity”, not surprising considering the world economy that year.

The Oxford dictionaries of the U.S. and the U.K. also had their 2012 favourites, respectively “to gif”, from the well-known file format, and “omnishambles”, meaning a disastrous situation, whichever perspective you take. Still, though chosen by the relevant lexicographers as the most interesting words of the year, the terms do not necessarily enter the dictionaries and may fade away with time.

What about “Arab Spring” you might ask? Does it not deserve a place in all this? Well, the term was actually chosen by Global Language Monitor  as the 2011 phrase of the year, along with word of the year, “occupy”.  The Monitor's 2012 choices were “Gangnam style” and “apocalypse”.

Time will tell which words make it to the top in 2013. Let’s watch and see.