The word of the year for 2007 is English?

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

TOURISM SUICIDE = travelling to well-known tourist destinations (eg, Golden Gate Bridge) for purposes of ending one's life.

EMBEDDED GIVING = charitable contributions promised by businesses as a customer bonus, eg, if American Express promised to give to ADS 1 cent for each use of one of their credit cards during the month of December.


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>

Date:         Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:10:29
To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] The word of the year for 2007 is English?


Laurence Horn wrote:
> At 1:43 AM +0000 12/17/07, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
>> The following were all new to me this year. Together they seem to
>> say a lot about life in America in the first decade of the century:
>>
>> Tourism suicide
>> Concierge medicine
>> Embedded giving.
>>
> They would say more to me if I knew what they were.  (I guess that
> means they're desirably opaque.)  Can we have brief definitions?
>

Well, I can do one out of three. "Concierge medicine" is running a
practice that accepts a limited number of patients, each of whom pays an
annual fee and, in exchange, is assured non-assembly-line appointments.

--
 =======================================================================
Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                               fax (203) 865-8963

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