Nancy Messieh, “A Look at How Twitter Continues to Shape the English Language” (The Next Web, Dec. 16, 2011)
Boston Globe’s language columnist, and chair of the ADS’ new words committee, Ben Zimmer, told NPR that the word ‘Occupy’ was most likely this year’s choice. Occupy is ”an old word that has been invested with new meanings” – of course due to the Occupy movement.
Other words that Zimmer mentioned in his NPR interview included Arab Spring, for obvious reasons, bunga bunga, an old phrase once again made popular by former Italian prime minister Berlusconi and his antics, and tiger blood, a hashtag that snagged the number two spot on Twitter’s top 10 hashtags of the year.
A combination of current events and online banter are clearly at the root of this list, and it’s interesting to note Twitter’s influence on the choices.
In fact, one of Zimmer’s own favourites is the phrase, ‘humble brag,’ similar to the idea of First World Problems, but made famous thanks to the many celeb tweets containing self-promotion in a thinly-veiled disguise of humility. There’s even an entire Twitter account dedicated to finding these tweets.
Read the rest here.