Andrew Beaujon, “GIF (as a Verb) is Dictionary’s Word of the Year” (Poynter, Nov. 13, 2012)
Boston Globe language columnist Ben Zimmer has been compiling his own list of words of the year. In an Internet communication, he tells Poynter the leading contenders are “YOLO” and “fiscal cliff,” plus “mansplaining, dox(x)ing, double down, Frankenstorm, Super PAC,” he writes, promising more words to come.
Read the rest here.
“‘Fiscal Cliff’ for Word of the Year!” (CNN Money, Nov. 9, 2012)
As we were researching the origin of the term “fiscal cliff,” CNNMoney reached out to linguistics expert Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com and language columnist for The Boston Globe.
We had no idea, but “fiscal cliff” may be considered for the Word of the Year in 2012. That is, if it can beat out “Gangnam Style” and “Frankenstorm”!
I’ve been keeping tabs on “fiscal cliff” in my capacity as Chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society. During the society’s annual meeting in the first week of January, we’ll be selecting our Word of the Year for 2012, and I expect “fiscal cliff” will be in the running — if it can hold off such contenders as “gangnam style,” “Frankenstorm,” “double down,” and “doxing.” (Yes, some of these are phrases and not single words, but WOTY candidates can be anything that could appear as a dictionary entry, including compounds, phrases, and prefixes.)
Read the rest here. (Related Word Routes column)