Who gets to choose the ... of the year? I bet we could all get together and choose something. Holiday card of the year? Most embarrassing photo?
It seems there's some disagreement about who gets to choose the word of the year. In December, "Truthiness" was named the word of 2006 by the good folks at Merriam-Webster (dictionary publishers). But just today, "Plutoed" was chosen by the American Dialect Society as their word of 2006. While I'm entertained by "Truthiness" (a creation of Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report), I think I'm more inclined to use "Plutoed" in a sentence. "To pluto" is:
"to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet."
I imagine we've all been "plutoed" at one time or another. I know I have.
Who's to say that dictionary publishers or professional word geeks should have the final say on the word of 2006? What's yours?
UPDATE: It turns out that the folks at Merriam-Webster may not be as good as I thought. The American Dialect Society selected "Truthiness" as their word of 2005, a full 11 months before M-W chose it. Hmmm, there's some word wackiness afoot here.
No comments:
Post a Comment