More Nincompoopery: Words of the Year for 2007
Last week, in reporting that Oxford University Press had anointed locavore as its Word of the Year for 2007, we warned that the season of dubious annual honors was upon us. And so with the jingling of marketers' bells, here are three of the latest lexical pronouncements.
Britain's Favorite Sounding Word?
When 2,000 Britons were recently asked to pick their favorite (or rather, favourite) sounding word from the 16,500 entries in the Cambridge Dictionary, 13 percent of them reportedly exclaimed, "Nincompoop." (Runners-up were love, mum, discombobulated, and excellent.) A spokesman for Ubisoft, the computer game company that sponsored the poll, concluded that the "results demonstrate our passion for language."
It's only a theory, but those who said "nincompoop" may not have been responding with passion to the actual question. More likely, they were expressing their exasperation at being pestered by a Ubisoft pollster.
2007 List of Banished Words
Every year since 1976, Lake Superior State University has been publishing its List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness. The 2007 roll call ranges from Gitmo and chipotle to undocumented alien and healthy food.
Fair enough. Or, as some might say (#3 on the list), "Awesome!"
The New World Word of the Year
According to the staff at Webster’s New World College Dictionary, the 2007 Word of the Year (selected from "more than 200 buzz-worthy finalists") is grass station, defined thus:
A theoretical fill-up spot in the not-too distant future; it reflects America's growing love affair with hybrid cars and vegetable-based fuels, including ethanol and biomass fuels--some of which really are distilled from plain old grass.
The goal of the competition, says editor-in-chief Michael Agnes, is to "choose one word (or phrase) that captures our imagination--whether with its intrinsic linguistic attributes or by the way it expresses how language reflects changing realities."
Past winners--or reality reflectors--include crackberry (2006), infosnacking (2005), and adultescent (2004). As far as we can determine, the frisky lexicographers at New World seek out words that have never been uttered by an earthling and will surely never appear in any one of their dictionaries.
More Words About Words:
Comments
“Discombobulated” is one of my favorite words! I’ve been using it for years since picking it up from working in a small office with a true Brit who was cherished in our little circle for her verbal oddities. Since then I’ve also used the beloved “Bob’s your Uncle” (in place of “Voila!”) as well. “Excellent!”
hello all, i would say that the fav word
this year for the US of A. would be
awesome. on lots of your programmes it is used quite often, cheers.
harry from north wales……uk.
Absolutely!
In the U.S., “absolutely” seems to have replaced “yes” as the most common way of expressing affirmation. Can anyone tell me if this practice has spread to other English-speaking countries?
Best–
Richard