Early 2008 WOTY Nominations Posted

[Grant Barrett]

Early nominations for the American Dialect Society's 2008 word of the  
year vote are now available, including three batches from society  
members who specialize in following language trends, and a list of the  
most-nominated terms from the general public in the US and Canada.

http://www.americandialect.org/woty2008/

All nominations will be considered for the American Dialect Society's  
19th annual word-of-the-year (WOTY) vote, the longest-running vote of  
its kind in the Anglophone world and the WOTY event up to which all  
others lead.

It will be held in San Francisco on Friday, January 9, 2009, and is  
open at no cost to members of the press and public. Detailed  
information on where and when the final vote will be held is here:

http://www.americandialect.org/2009/

Judging by the nomination trends, two major events preoccupied North  
America over the last 12 months and dominated its discourse. An  
impressive 51% of the nominations were related to the American  
presidential election, including 13.5% that were plays on Barack  
Obama's name, 2.7%% that were related to "Joe" (as in "Joe the  
Plumber" or "Joe Sixpack"), and 2.2% that were related to the name of  
Sarah Palin. Coming in a distant second were the 19% of the  
nominations related to the ongoing financial crisis.

The top individual nominations from the public so far, in order of  
popularity:

1. "change" 11.7%

2. "bailout" 9%

3. "maverick" 4%

4. "to vet; vetting" 3.6%

5. "Obama-nation"/"Obomination"/"Obamination" treated as one item 2.7%

6. (tie) "game-changer," "hope," and "Obamamania" each with 2.2%

7. (tie) "Obamanos" and "you betcha," each with 1.8%

8. (tie) "Joe Six-Pack" and "meh," each with 1.3%

More nominations, with definitions and supporting information, are  
available from these society members:

Nominations from Grant Barrett, chair of the American Dialect  
Society's New Words Committee and its vice president of communications  
and technology; co-host of the nationwide public radio show "A Way  
with Words"; and editor of the "Double-Tongued Dictionary."

http://americandialect.org/Barrett-2008-WOTY-Nominations.pdf

Nominations from Wayne Glowka, Dean of the School of Arts and  
Humanities at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia, and former editor  
of the "Among the New Words" column of the society's journal American  
Speech.

http://americandialect.org/Glowka-2008-WOTY-Nominations.pdf

Nominations from Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual  
Thesaurus, and member of the Executive Council of the American Dialect  
Society.

http://americandialect.org/Zimmer-2008-WOTY-Nominations.pdf

Media contact information for each nominator is included in the files  
above.

Nominations from the public can still be sent to <woty at americandialect.org 
 >.

The best "word of the year" candidates will be:

--new or newly popular in 2008
--widely or prominently used in 2008
--indicative or reflective of the national discourse

Multi-word compounds or phrases that act as single lexical items are  
welcomed, as well.

Sub-categories for "word of the year" include most useful, most  
creative, most unnecessary, most outrageous, most euphemistic, most  
likely to succeed, and least likely to succeed.

The vote is informed by the members' expertise in the study of words,  
but it is far from a solemn occasion. Members in the 119-year-old  
academic organization include linguists, lexicographers, etymologists,  
grammarians, historians, researchers, writers, authors, editors,  
professors, university students, and independent scholars. In  
conducting the vote, they act in fun and do not pretend to be  
officially inducting words into the English language. Instead, they  
are highlighting that language change is normal, ongoing, and  
entertaining.

Previous winners can be found here:

http://www.americandialect.org/woty/

The American Dialect Society is open to all persons worldwide who have  
an interest in language. Membership includes four annual issues of the  
society's academic journal, one complete scholarly work per year from  
the "Publication of the American Dialect Society" series, and a  
subscription to its email newsletter. There is a discounted membership  
rate for students at any academic level, who are especially encouraged  
to join. More information about membership:

http://www.dukeupress.edu/ads/

...

Grant Barrett
Vice President of Communications and Technology
American Dialect Society
http://www.americandialect.org
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org

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