It’s a wonderful time of the year. It is the end of the shopping/spending/going-in-debt season. And it’s probably good that most of us have made our final laps around the holiday leftovers smorgasbord.
But that is not why I am animated, avid and agog. As a word nerd, I always get happy this time of the year because January is when dictionaries release their annual choices for the “word of the year.”
Each dictionary has it’s own top choice for word of the year, and each uses similar techniques to determine it. The editors of the Cambridge Dictionary chose four words from a list of new submissions to its on-line publication and then let the public vote on them.
The Oxford Dictionary used the number of times a particular word was looked up on it’s website as well as the number of ways it was paired with other worlds. The people at Merriam-Webster considered the frequency of look-ups as well as the increase of the word over the previous year. And Dictionary.com simply considered the number of times a word was looked up on its website.
Looking over the list of words considered and chosen reads like one of those year-end reviews that are ubiquitous in December and January. Some words are culture-related and express our current preoccupations, and some are words that find their way into the moment’s latest political hubbub. This is not surprising when you consider why a person is likely to look up a word in the first place.
Take “Nomophobia,” the Cambridge Dictionary’s number one choice (and my favorite). I admit it’s a new one on me. It means “The fear or worry of the idea of being without your mobile phone or not being able to use it.” “Nomophobia” is a blend created from “no mobile phone.” This blending of words to make a new one is not unusual in the history of word creation.
Still, though, it seems to me modern pop culture uses this technique sometimes to excess. I’m thinking now of those grocery store checkout aisle magazines that feature blended celebrity names on their covers.
Over at the Oxford Dictionary the 2018 word of the year is “toxic.” The editors explained this adjective was coupled with a variety of other words to form “intoxicating descriptor(s) for the year’s most talked about topics.” (Dictionary editors obviously have a sense of humor.) Some of the words often used alongside toxic in the previous year were “chemical,” “masculinity,” “substance,” “relationship” and “culture.” Those who follow culture and/or politics will recognize these pairs and are already remembering some specific news items in which they appeared.
Merriam-Webster chose “justice” as its top word. In 2018 the entry was looked up 74 percent more often than in 2017. They cited a variety of sources from “the Department of Justice to the Kavanaugh hearings to concepts such as social, economic and criminal justice.” It has been my experience that justice is one of those words that different people will define in different ways.
“Misinformation” is the word of the year at Dictionary.com. They define it as “False information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead.” This word takes its place alongside “post-truth,” “fake news” and others such current concepts. Liz McMillan, CEO of dictionary.com notes, “The emergence of a lexicon to describe misinformation alone is a telling sign.” (Not to be too flip about it, but how do we know this is in fact what the dictionary editors actually chose as word of the year?)
Yes, it is an exciting time of the year. Once again the annual release by the dictionaries has introduced us to words old and new and given us something to think about. What is more exciting for a word nerd than that?
