"Locavore" is Oxford Word-of-the-Year

[Barry Popik]

"Locavore." Someone named Ben Zimmer praises this food word. This,
from a dictionary that doesn't even have "ranch" dressing!
...
...
...
http://blog.oup.com/2007/11/locavore/
Oxford Word Of The Year: Locavore
 November 12, 2007

It's that time of the year again. It is finally starting to get cold
(if you are worried about the global warming maybe you should become
carbon-neutral) and the New Oxford American Dictionary is preparing
for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year. The
2007 Word of the Year is (drum-roll please) locavore.

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown
ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that
can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

The "locavore" movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers'
markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh,
local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also
shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure,
since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for
transportation.

"The word 'locavore' shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat
while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,"
said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University
Press. "It's significant in that it brings together eating and ecology
in a new way."

"Locavore" was coined two years ago by a group of four women in San
Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only
food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Other regional
movements have emerged since then, though some groups refer to
themselves as "localvores" rather than "locavores." However it's
spelled, it's a word to watch.

Runners-up for the 2007 Word of the Year include:

aging in place: the process of growing older while living in one's own
residence, instead of having to move to a new home or community

bacn: email notifications, such as news alerts and social networking
updates, that are considered more desirable than unwanted "spam"
(coined at PodCamp Pittsburgh in Aug. 2007 and popularized in the
blogging community)

cloudware: online applications, such as webmail, powered by massive
data storage facilities, also called "cloud servers"

colony collapse disorder: a still-unexplained phenomenon resulting in
the widespread disappearance of honeybees from beehives, first
observed in late 2006

cougar: an older woman who romantically pursues younger men

MRAP vehicle: Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, designed to
protect troops from improvised explosive devices (IEDs)

mumblecore: an independent film movement featuring low-budget
production, non-professional actors, and largely improvised dialogue

previvor: a person who has not been diagnosed with a form of cancer
but has survived a genetic predisposition for cancer

social graph: the network of one's friends and connections on social
websites such as Facebook and Myspace

tase (or taze): to stun with a Taser (popularized by a Sep. 2007
incident in which a University of Florida student was filmed being
stunned by a Taser at a public forum)

upcycling: the transformation of waste materials into something more
useful or valuable

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