[Coco] An Off Topic subject.

[Dave Kelly]

Not to bore you with the rest of the newsletter I clipped out this
interesting bit.
Taken from the Wide World of Words. 01-10-04


4. ADS Words of the Year, 2003
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Each year, the conference of the American Dialect Society elects
those words and phrases of the preceding year that seem noteworthy.
Whilst not exactly frivolous, the voting is lighthearted, as one
may tell from the categories and some of the selections. Last
night's session in Boston was no exception.

For example, the Most Unnecessary Word of the year. Many of us
could compile a list of possibilities here. The ADS members came up
with "freedom", replacing "French" in phrases or compound nouns
such as "French fries" and "French kiss". This easily beat
"Bennifer", a blended noun describing the couple of Ben Affleck and
Jennifer Lopez. In the Most Outrageous category nominations
included "torture lite", torture short of bodily harm and "useful
idiot", a human shield for the enemy. But the winner, clearly a
word which fits its slot perfectly, was "cliterati", a collective
noun for feminist or woman-oriented writers or opinion-leaders.

The word voted Least Likely To Succeed, that is, the word or phrase
least likely to be here next year, was "tomacco", a hybrid of
tomato and tobacco. "Spider hole", was voted Best Revival, a word
or phrase brought back from the past (this, you may recall, was the
American military term used in news reports for the hole in which
Saddam Hussein was captured; it goes back at least to 1941). The
word voted Most Likely to Succeed, that is, the word or phrase most
likely to be here next year was "SARS", Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (see http://quinion.com?XC). And the award for the word or
phrase which least says what it means to was given to "pre-emptive
self-defense": noun phrase, an attack made before a possible
attack.

The Most Creative award required several rounds of voting to get
the mood of the meeting clear. Among those suggested were the
several terms devised to refer to the new governor of California,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, "governator", "gropenator", and
"gropenführer", variously referring to his part in the Terminator
films, his origins, and the allegations of sexual harassment made
against him. But the winner here was a word that subscribers to
this newsletter have recently heard about (see
http://quinion.com?XB): "freegan", a person, nominally vegan, who
eats only what they can get for nothing. Still on food, the Most
Useful category winner for a word or phrase which most fills a need
for a new word was won by "flexitarian", a vegetarian who
occasionally eats meat.

And now (a drum roll, maestro, please) the Word (or Phrase) of the
Year. This required three rounds of voting. But the final winner
was "metrosexual", a fashion-conscious heterosexual male, or, as
Mark Simpson put it, a man who "has clearly taken himself as his
own love object" (see http://quinion.com?XA).

What, then, of 2004? It is hardly likely to be dull. It is, after
all, the UN International Year of Rice and - in the UK - will be
featuring the Be Nice To Nettles Week (actually the ten-day period
from 19-28 May).


If it's good enough for ancient druids
running nekkid through the wuids
drinking strange fermented fluids
then it's good enough for me