[Ads-l] "dumpster fire" is the 2016 American Dialect society word of the year

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Jan 7 23:23:47 UTC 2017


> On Jan 7, 2017, at 4:31 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
> 
>> On Jan 6, 2017, at 6:00 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
>> 
>> What is the rationale for naming "gaslight" as the most useful/likely to succeed?  The word has been around for decades.  Did it come to some special prominence in 2016?
> 
> over seven decades, in fact.  the movie that's the source of the expression came out in 1944.
> 

Yes, Grant Barrett actually put up the poster (Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman) before the vote.  The argument (which didn’t convince me) was that it had indeed become newly re-prominent in ’16.

LH

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