Laura Parker, “In DC, Everything Is ‘Robust’ Even When It Isn’t” (AOL News, Mar. 9, 2011). Quoted about trends in words, from “robust” to “tiger blood.”
Ben Zimmer, executive producer at the Visual Thesaurus, was looking into Sheenisms when I caught up with him, having just coined Sheenenfreude to describe the fascination with the actor’s ravings.
Zimmer chairs the New Words Committee for the American Dialect Society, whose members vote for the best word, new or old, every fall. In 2009, the members picked “tweet,” and in 2008, “bailout” stole the show. For 2010, they chose “app,” a word that had been around for quite a while but needed a boost from Apple to capture society’s attention.
Read the rest here.