Words of the Year and the Century

[Greg Austin]

AAllan at AOL.COM writes:

<< There's always a question of whether to credit a word in its earliest
 appearance, or at the height of its popularity. In our book, we tend to date
 words by first appearance, but not always. For example, Ebonics was coined in
 1973 but popularized in 1997, and we used that later date. >>

I don't understand how a "word of the year" can be picked on the basis of a
word's first appearance.  That would be equivalent to choosing a man of the
year by the year in which he was born.  How can a word be chosen for year
1999?  Wouldn't we have to wait 50 or so years to find out what newly created
word has future merit?  In my opinion any word of the year would have to have
important usage in the year for which it is chosen and be a reflection of
American culture at that time.

Greg Austin