The not-so-slow death of truthiness?

[David Bowie]

From:    Brenda Lester <alphatwin2002 at YAHOO.COM>
 > "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU> wrote:

>> Ron's point in this and his subsequent e-mails on the subject is
>> valid: Whichever word ADS selects as word of the year should be one
>> that actually dominates the lexical scene of the preceding
>> year--something on the order of "Katrina" or "tsunami." There are
>> probably many educated speakers of English who never even heard of
>> "truthiness." Its selection as Word of The Year by ADS represents a
>> bit of whimsy, a flight of fancy, an idea which should have been
>> classified among the also-rans rather than the big winner.

> I was stunned to learn that "truthiness" was chosen as Word of the
> Year. I considered "truthiness" to be a nonce word. Here today and
> gone today.  Cute, but not enduring.

Isn't this part of the tension inherent in choosing a WotY? It's
supposed to be "a word or phrase that best reflects the language and
preoccupations of the year gone by", according to the ADS
homepage/blog[1] definition. There's nothing in that definition that
means it can't be "a bit of whimsy, a flight of fancy", as long as it
meets the definition--after all, we have a completely separate most
likely to succeed category.

I mean, if we were voting in 1947 for the WotY of 1946, "Had enough?"
(one of the main slogans the Republicans ran on in taking control of
Congress, next to the IMO cleverer "To err is Truman") might well have
been worth making the WotY, since it reflected a pretty significant
shift in US politics which, arguably, reflected the beginning of a shift
in US society--but  it must have been pretty much forgotten by 1948,
when Truman won re-election the GOP more than lost its congressional gains.

[1] What do you call it when there's no real distinction, where the
homepage in in blog format? A homeblog? Like a homeboy, only with text,
i suppose.

--
David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

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