Nominations for 2011 Word of the Year

[Joel S. Berson]

At 1/23/2012 11:58 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>...
>There was no surge for "surge," simply because it never came up at the
>nominating session or the main WOTY voting session. It may not have
>been on anyone's radar since it is neither a neologism nor an old word
>given new significance (like, say, "occupy").

 From the ADS pages, I see no such requirement.  Rather, "Word of the
Year ... The words or phrases do not have to be brand-new, but they
have to be newly prominent or notable in the past year."

Surely "surge" was prominent.  I don't believe it should have beaten
out "occupy", but I am surprised no one nominated it.  I will have to
correct that oversight this year.

And is there a category for a word used to death?

Joel

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