WOrds of the Year

[AAllan at AOL.COM]

Beth asks:

>>A colleague here asked about the -gate suffix. Actually, what she cried out
was,
"But what about the suffix of the decade?"
I think I remember a discussion, both of -gate, the suffix, and having a
suffix of
SOME TIME UNIT. Did these occur?<<

1996 WOTY was mom as in soccer mom, if you want to count that.

1998 Brand New was the suffix -agra or -gra, denoting a substance prompting
men to perform unusually, as in "directra" that causes men to ask for
directions.

1997 Most Useful was -[r]azzi, an aggressive pursuer.

_America in So Many Words_ has "Watergate" the Barnhart & Metcalf word for
1972, with discussion of its continuing significance because of the "-gate"
suffix.

ADS has had several _pre_fixes as WOTY: 1998 e- as in e-mail, e-commerce;
1994 cyber; 1991 mother of all --, if you want to count that.

In the voting this year, the only nominee that was a suffix was "__ fatigue"
as in "millennium fatigue" as Most Useful, and it got zero votes. No suffix
nominees for Words of the Decade, Century, or Millennium.

Full listings of ADS words of the year are on the ADS website. - Allan Metcalf