And the Word of the Year, as chosen by the American Dialect Society is … “hashtag.” Category nominees included YOLO (You Only Live Once), fiscal cliff, Gangnam style, marriage equality and 47 per cent.
“This was the year when the hashtag became a ubiquitous phenomenon in online talk,” explained association member Ben Zimmer, also the language columnist at the Boston Globe. “In the Twittersphere and elsewhere, hashtags have created instant social trends, spreading bite-sized viral messages on topics ranging from politics to pop culture.”
Here, from the ADS website, is a list of other categories in contention, complete with winners and definitions:
MOST USEFUL
Winner:
-(po)calypse, -(ma)geddon: Hyperbolic combining forms for various catastrophes
Contenders:
YOLO: Acronym for “You Only Live Once,” often used sarcastically or self-deprecatingly
hate-watching: Continuing to follow a television show despite having an aversion to it
beardruff: Dandruff from one’s beard
MOST CREATIVE
Winner:
gate lice: Airline passengers who crowd around a gate waiting to board
Contenders:
mansplaining: A man’s condescending explanation to a female audience
alpacalypse: The Mayan apocalypse predicted for Dec. 21, 2012 (alpaca + -lypse)
dancelexia: Inability to pull off dance moves (such as misspelling “YMCA”) 36
MOST UNNECESSARY
Winner:
legitimate rape: Type of rape that Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed rarely results in pregnancy
Contenders:
Frankenstorm: Term for Hurricane Sandy’s hybrid storm system (after Frankenstein’s monster)
HD: Abbreviation for “high-definition,” used for things that could not be high-definition
feels: Slangy shortening of “feelings”
MOST OUTRAGEOUS
Winner:
legitimate rape: Type of rape that Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed rarely results in pregnancy
Contenders:
Dunlop effect: When one’s stomach protrudes over ill-fitting pants (“belly done lop over the belt”)
slut-shaming: Attacking a woman for socially stigmatized sexual activity
butt-chugging: An alcohol enema, used in college fraternity hazing rituals
MOST EUPHEMISTIC
Winner:
self-deportation: Policy of encouraging illegal immigrants to return voluntarily to their home countries
Contenders:
disruptive: Destroying existing business models
Gray Thursday: Name given to Thanksgiving as a shopping day before Black Friday
ratchet: Slang term originally referring to “urban divas” now used to mean “ghetto”
evolution: Change of opinion
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
Winner:
marriage equality: Legal recognition of same-sex marriage
Contenders:
fiscal cliff: Threat of spending cuts and tax increases looming over end-of-year budget negotiations
superstorm: An unusually large and destructive storm, such as Hurricane Sandy
MOOC: Acronym for “massive open online course”
big data: Large collections of digital information used for revealing behavioral insights
LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
Winners:
phablet: Mid-sized electronic device between a smartphone and a tablet
YOLO: Acronym for “You Only Live Once,” often used sarcastically or self-deprecatingly
Contenders:
Cray-cray: slangy shortening and reduplication of “crazy”
Gangnam style: the trendy style of Seoul’s Gangnam district, as used in the Korean pop song of the same name
Windows Metro: name originally used for the Windows 8 operating system
meggings: a blend for “male leggings”
ELECTION WORDS (new category)
Winner:
binders (full of women): Term used by Romney in the second presidential debate to describe the resumes of female job candidates that he consulted as governor of Massachusetts
Contenders:
47 percent: Portion of the population that does not pay federal income tax
Etch-a-Sketch: Metaphor of reinvention used by Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom
Eastwooding: Photo fad inspired by Clint Eastwood’s unscripted speech at the RNC
Romney/Obama: Names of candidates used for blends (Obamaloney, Obamageddon, Romnesia, Romney Hood)
malarkey: Nonsense, empty talk (as used by Biden in the vice-presidential debate)
RELATED STORY
Click here to read about the Oxford 2012 Word of the Year.