Re: Re: Fairly new word(?): "exoneree"
AAllan at AOL.COM
AAllan at AOL.COM
Tue May 13 16:51:25 UTC 2003
Larry writes:
> . . . antedating the Washington Post cite by 9 years. So much for its WOTY
> candidacy.
>
Not so. WOTY doesn't practice ageism. Soon after starting the WOTY annual
voting in 1990, we realized that most of the likely suspects had histories.
For example, "Not!" was our word (or expression) of the year 1992. That vote
prompted ADS members Jesse Sheidlower and Jonathan Lighter to look into the
past of "Not!" They found an example from 1900, but it didn't dethrone "Not!"
for 1992. (See American Speech for summer 1993 . . . available online to ADS
members, of course.)
So we learned to call it "Words of the Year" rather than "*New* Words of the
Year." We look for newly prominent words (or phrases - we also don't limit
ourselves to single words), words that reflect the linguistic preoccupations
of the year.
and thus "exonoree" is exonerated.
- Allan Metcalf
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