[Ads-l] WOTY nominations

Hugo hugovk at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jan 7 13:20:10 UTC 2015


I nominated these for 2013 but both were strong in 2014 so here they come
again:

 * bae
 * thot

These are "new" in 2014:

 * on fleek
 * bruh
 * fuckboy
 * hella

These are all sourced from analysis of three Twitter bots that have been
collecting words from Twitter for the past year. They've looked for certain
sentences and extracted the X.

 * @lovihatibot -- "I love/hate the word X"
 * @nixibot -- "X is not/isn't/ain't a word"
 * @favibot -- "X is my new favorite/favourite/fave word"

People talking about words ‒ especially new favourite  words, or loved
words, or hated words, or words they've decided don't exist ‒ may be a good
indicator of brand new words or at least words with new currency. Both
increases and decreases may reflect an underlying change in use, and
decreases may reflect an acceptance of the words.

 * "Bae" and "thot" were numbers 1 and 2 in the combined charts of words.
Both peaked in 2014.

 * "Fleek", or more fully "on fleek", means on point, on the mark, stylish,
amazing or impeccable. First mentioned in the bot logs in August 2014, it's
still riding the peak. First used on Vine by Peaches Monroe in June 2014,
it was later popularised by Ariana Grande, who sang out the Vine on MTV in
August.

 * Bruh (bro, brother), not a new word but picked up in March 2014, and
peaked in June/July 2014. Use is likely spurred on by its use in a Vine
clip from May 2014 and in lots of copied Vines.

 * Likewise, "fuckboy" isn't new, but has seen increasing mentions as an
anti-GamerGate pejorative.

 * Finally, intensifier "hella" saw some use in 2013, but it increased in
2014 peaking between February and August.

More words and charts and bits here:
 * http://laivakoira.typepad.com/blog/2015/01/twitter-woty-2014.html

Follow along:
 * https://twitter.com/lovihatibot
 * https://twitter.com/nixibot
 * https://twitter.com/favibot

Hugo

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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