Interview on “Eight Forty-Eight” (WBEZ Chicago), about notable words of the year. (Dec. 13, 2011)
When the end of the year rolls around, people start making their best of lists–from music to movies, news stories and news makers. But could one word sum up an entire year? According to the American Dialect Society, it can. In early January, the group will choose one word to rule the year. There were plenty of words in contention, including humblebrag, narb and Mubaraked. To find out more, Eight Forty-Eight turned to Ben Zimmer, a University of Chicago alum, and executive producer of the VisualThesaurus.com and Vocabulary.com.
The word of the year will be chosen by the American Dialect Society on Jan. 6.
(Show page, audio, related Word Routes column, Boston Globe column)