Each year, the American Dialect Society<\/a> vote on what they call the \u201cWord of the Year<\/a>\u201d. It might be a new word that was coined by a politician or singer, it might be a word that adopted a new meaning, or it might be an old word that suddenly surged in popularity. Sometimes the \u2018word\u2019 of the year is actually two words that, when put together, have a new meaning.
\nSince 1999, I have selected my own personal \u201cWord of the Year\u201d. Like the ADS, my choice can be a word I never heard before, or one that suddenly surged in popularity for me personally (for whatever reason). When two words seem to be vying for Word of the Year, I select one ‘winner’ and one runner-up.
\nBelow are my “Words of the Year,” with brief explanations.
\nAll words are clickable links.<\/p>\n\n
| Year<\/th> | Word<\/th> | Definition<\/th> | Explanation<\/th> | Runner-up (if any)<\/th> | Definition<\/th> | Explanation<\/th>\n\t<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999<\/td> | Filmlet<\/a><\/td> | A short film; generally under 40 or 60 minutes.<\/td> | Began using the term to describe the short films I create<\/a>.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2000<\/td> | Viscosity<\/a><\/td> | The property of resistance to flow in a fluid.<\/td> | Studied viscocity and used a viscometer in college.<\/td> | Flyboat<\/a><\/td> | A street in the city of Apple Valley<\/a>.<\/td> | Put a down payment on a townhome on Flyboat Lane.<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2001<\/td> | Denouement<\/a><\/td> | The final outcome of the dramatic complications in a literary work.<\/td> | Learned the word in film class in college. Loved it.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2002<\/td> | GMP (Good Manufacturing Processes)<\/a><\/td> | The practices and systems required to be adapted in pharmaceutical industries.<\/td> | Began working in pharmaceutical industry.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2003<\/td> | Environmental Monitoring<\/a><\/td> | The processes and activities that characterize and monitor the quality of a given environment.<\/td> | Began working part-time in microbiology department.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2004<\/td> | Big Lake<\/a><\/td> | A city in Minnesota, northwest of the Twin Cities metro area.<\/td> | Moved to Big Lake.<\/td> | Doula<\/a><\/td> | A person who provides non-medical support to women and their families during labor, childbirth, and postpartum.<\/td> | My wife hired a doula during her pregnancy.<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| \f2005<\/td> | Cephalohematoma<\/a><\/td> | A localized effusion of blood beneath the skull of a newborn due to the disruption of vessels during birth.<\/td> | My son was born with it.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2006<\/td> | Cognitive Dissonance<\/a><\/a><\/td> | The discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas or beliefs simultaneously.<\/td> | Realized this was a condition I'd had for about five years.<\/td> | Love Bombing<\/a><\/td> | The deliberate show of affection by an individual or group toward another individual motivated by the desire to recruit, convert, or influence.<\/td> | Finally was able to put a term to a practice I'd seen, oh, about ten thousand times.<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2007<\/td> | Apraxia<\/a><\/td> | A disorder of the brain and nervous system in which a person is unable to perform certain tasks or movements.<\/td> | My son was diagnosed with it.<\/td> | Theodicy<\/a><\/td> | Philosophical attempts to rationalize a just, loving deity with the evil in the world.<\/td> | Read a lot about this in 2007.<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2008<\/td> | Geocaching<\/a><\/td> | An outdoor activity in which people use navigation techniques to hide and seek containers.<\/td> | A friend introduced me to this activity.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2009<\/td> | Matriculation<\/a><\/td> | The formal process of being admitted to a college or university.<\/td> | Enrolled at Hamline University<\/a>.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2010<\/td> | Firestorm<\/a><\/td> | A conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and maintains its own wind system.<\/td> | Visited Hinckley Fire Museum<\/a>, and read a book about it<\/a>.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2011<\/td> | Dunnage<\/a><\/td> | Material used to protect and secure cargo during transport.<\/td> | Transferred to packaging department at work.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2012<\/td> | VoC (Voice of Customer)<\/a><\/td> | A business term used to describe an in-depth process of discovering a customer's wants and needs.<\/td> | Worked extensively on VoC initiatives at work.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2013<\/td> | Overton Window<\/a><\/td> | The range of ideas the public will accept.<\/td> | First heard this term at an Atheists' Conference.<\/td> | Comstockian Language<\/a><\/td> | Language fit for a prudish audience.<\/td> | Also heard this term at the conference.<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2014<\/td> | Historiography<\/a><\/td> | The study of historical writing.<\/td> | Wrote an historiography for History class in college.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2015<\/td> | KonMari<\/a><\/td> | A way of life and a state of mind that encourages cherishing the things that spark joy in people\u2019s lives.<\/td> | Read the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up<\/a><\/td> | Diatomaceous Earth<\/a><\/td> | A naturally occurring, soft, siliceous sedimentary rock that is easily crumbled into a fine white to off-white powder.<\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2016<\/td> | Minnesota Miracle<\/a><\/td> | The series of legislative and grassroots reforms that took place in late-20th-century Minnesota that improved education.<\/td> | Wrote a paper for History class in college.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2017<\/td> | Syuzhet<\/a><\/td> | The way a story is organized.<\/td> | First heard in college class.<\/td> | Fabula<\/a><\/td> | The raw material of a story.<\/td> | First heard in college class.<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t |
| 2018<\/td> | IOC<\/a><\/td> | Internet-Only Question<\/td> | First heard at trivia night at Bay Street Grill.<\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td> | <\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Each year, the American Dialect Society vote on what they call the \u201cWord of the Year\u201d. It might be a new word that was coined by a politician or singer, it might be a word that adopted a new meaning, or it might be an old word that suddenly surged in popularity. Sometimes the \u2018word\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2555","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2555"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2717,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2555\/revisions\/2717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |