AP confuses ADS and ANS

[Benjamin Zimmer]

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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2777380
'Plutoed' Chosen As '06 Word of the Year
ANAHEIM, Calif. Jan 7, 2007 (AP)— Pluto is finally getting some
respect not from astronomers, but from wordsmiths.
"Plutoed" was chosen 2006's Word of the Year by the American Dialect
Society at its annual meeting Friday.
To "pluto" is "to demote or devalue someone or something," much like
what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly
of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn't meet its
definition of a planet.
"Our members believe the great emotional reaction of the public to the
demotion of Pluto shows the importance of Pluto as a name," said
society president Cleveland Evans. "We may no longer believe in the
Roman god Pluto, but we still have a sense of personal connection with
the former planet."
[...]
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Looks like the AP reporter misread the ADS press release! The ANS vote
for "Pluto" as Name of the Year (as opposed to the ADS vote for the
verb "pluto" as Word of the Year) isn't even mentioned in the article,
even though the quote from Cleveland Evans is clearly identified in
the press release as relating to NotY, not WotY.

Perhaps not as big a gaffe as last year's AP article omitting Stephen
Colbert from the discussion of "truthiness", but sloppy journalism
nonetheless...


--Ben Zimmer

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