Jennifer Schuessler, “Tweet This: ‘Hashtag’ Named Word of the Year” (New York Times, Jan. 7, 2013)
The baby named Hashtag buzzed about on the Internet in November may have been a hoax. But the American Dialect Society has given the Twitter-inspired term a boost by christening “hashtag” the word of the year.
The decision came at the society’s annual meeting in Boston over the weekend, where more than 250 linguists, lexicographers, grammarians, historians and other word maniacs weighed the relative merits of terms like “fiscal cliff,” “Gangnam style,” and “marriage equality.”
There were winners in 10 categories, including most unnecessary (“legitimate rape”), most euphemistic (“self-deportation”) and most creative (“gate lice,” meaning airline passengers who crowd around a gate waiting to board). “Binders (full of women)” was named top election-related word. “YOLO,” an acronym meaning “you only live once,” was named least likely to succeed. (It also finished strong in a recent contest nominating terms that should be purged from the language.) “Sandy” was voted name of the year.
In the main category, “hashtag” emerged as something of a dark-horse winner, edging out “fiscal cliff” and “marriage equality” (which took most likely to succeed honors), despite not being on the official list of nominees, as Ben Zimmer, the chairman of the society’s new words committee, noted in a rundown of the action. “This was the year when the hashtag became a ubiquitous phenomenon in online talk,” Mr. Zimmer said in a statement.
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