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July 03, 2007

Merriam Webster's words of the year for 2006

buzz
3
+ buzz

I collect dictionaries and have about 300. But my favorite is the Merriam Webster 3rd Unabridged. In America, these are the folks who take words most seriously.

Each year, MW conducts a survey of its web readers to determine the words of the year. The 2006 list is depressing because it rotates around the language mangling favored in Washington.

Truthiness wins -- no surprise.

1Truthiness

Merriam Webster's orignal story on this is linked here.

2google



3decider

George Bush's nonce word -- from "I am the decider" -- and other aspects of his adminstration dominate this year's words. I doubt they'll welcome that distinction though because, clearly, people are tired of the war on language that Washington has elevated to the highest levels.

4war

Have we reached the point where we need this defined? WTF?

5insurgent

OK, see the pattern here?

Newspeak (look it up!) has taken hold in Washington and suddenly people are referring to dictionaries to look up words whose definition SHOULD HAVE been settled decades ago...

6terrorism



7vendetta

The inclusion of vendetta is really interesting.

8sectarian



9quagmire



10corruption






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