[Ads-l] Last Call for WOTY Nominations

[Kelly Wright]

Greetings, Everyone!


I hope y'alls' year is coming to a lovely end :)

I am reaching out with a final invitation to submit Word of the Year
nominations. The survey can be accessed here <https://bit.ly/2025WOTYNOMS> (
https://bit.ly/2025WOTYNOMS) *until New Year's Eve, December 31st*. As a
reminder, no expertise is required to participate! For the sake of the WOTY
vote, *word* is broadly defined to include multiword phrases, compounds,
idiomatic expressions, and even emoji that behave like single lexical
items. We welcome words from any domain including sports, music, scripted
media, online communities and platforms, informal or casual usage, across
professions, religious communities, and political discourse. Words of the
Year can come from languages other than English.

The best way to have your perspective represented is to participate!! I
read each (anonymous) survey carefully and thoughtfully, using them to
lexically characterize the year; each is precious to me and if you trust me
with your thoughts, I will honor them in my summation.

And, in case you are interested (or more details will help to choose your
nominees), here is some recent coverage of the American Dialect Society's
upcoming Word of the Year vote (on Friday, January 9, 2026, at 6:45 p.m,
live at the New Orleans Marriott) alongside discussion of other
dictionaries' and organizations' choices:

   - Stefan Fatsis - Literary Hub
   <https://lithub.com/choosing-the-word-of-the-year-is-no-easy-feat/>
(Interviewing
   Brianne Hughes)
   - Aaron Mak - Politico
   <https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/12/23/2025-the-year-ai-exhaustion-set-in-00704856>
   - Brian Lehrer - WNYC
   <https://www.wnyc.org/story/2025s-words-of-the-year/> (Interviewing Ben
   Zimmer)
   - Niteshift - WBAI <https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=61207>
   (Co-hosted by Kelly Wright)
   - Marcus Medford-Kerr - CBC Radio
   <https://www.cbc.ca/radio/67-word-of-the-year-doesn-t-mean-anything-linguist-9.7009374>


I hope you enjoy! And thanks for considering making your submission and
sharing the link with others.


Yours,
K.

Dr. Kelly Elizabeth Wright
Assistant Editor | Among the New Words
*American Speech*
Data Czar | New Words Committee
*American Dialect Society*

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