2009 was not a positive year.
The New Oxford American Dictionary announced "unfriend" as the word of the year. And if that isn't depressing enough, the other additions to the list include sexting and netbook.
I thought that this was just a reflection of a bad year. After all, seeing people add Miley Cyrus to their music likes or having to constantly ignore requests to find out what Sesame Street character shares my bitter sense of humor are both valid reasons to see the "unfriend" feature rise to the top of Babel.
But upon further research, I'm not so sure 2009 is alone in its bias toward Negative Nancies. According to the American Dialect Society, which compiles the short list each year for words to earn the top honor, the best word of the year is "indicative or reflective of the popular discourse." And altough theirs is a different list than the NOAD, their past choices have not been much more promising. We had the bailout of 2008, preceded by subprime (2007), weapons of mass destruction (2002), and my personal favorite, plutoed (2006), meaning demoted or devalued. Even though I've never heard the latter used as a verb in real speech, the fact that it made the list just goes to show that we need to find something to pick our spirits up.
What happened to the 20th century, characterized by "jazz" as the Word of the Century? Or "she" as the Word of the Millennium? The 21st century is slipping through our fingers, or at least our mouths.
But we can fix this. Nominations for Word of the Decade are still open! And even better, the ADS's yearly conference this year is being held in none other than Baltimore. I'm ready to make our case for a word that can reach beyond a two-front war, the worst terrorist attack on American soil, having to look at Jon Goesslin's toolbag picture, and the complete mental breakdown of Britney Spears.. Think hard, my friends.
And just for fun, my suggestions for the Word of the Year subcategories:
-most useful: balls. It fits almost every exclamation I ever need to make.
-most unnecessary: melancholy. It doesn't really mean anything, and is sort of like consumption; it just stands for a whole bunch of other symptoms that don't really exist.
-most creative: trashcanistan. Thanks Neil Campell via Weakley.
-most delightful (my own category): saunter. It's just such a vivid image.
-most likely to succeed: rogue. After Sarah Palin's campaign-like book tour, it's only a matter of
time before this one is being used to refer to everything under the political sun. God save us all.
-least likely to succeed: fetch. Sorry Gretchen, if it hasn't caught on by now, it doesn't look good.
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i hate "melancholy." it is actually in my medical charting as a way to describe my patients at the hospital. i would never use that word to describe a patient- i can say so much more by using the word "depressed" and then writing in the "note" on the side that the "patient is sobbing and threatening to jump out of the window." melancholy just doesn't quite cover it.
also, love that i am not the only person who thinks that miley cyrus shouldn't exist. ick.
"negative nancies"
I object.
"Balls" is definitely your word of the year. I approve though.
Can people send a make up or break up sext? How do you go about this process of "unfriending" people? In my previous methods the body count is rising and I'm tired of laying low for a months at a time.
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