American Dialect Society Names Occupy the 2011 Word of the Year
Posted on January 8, 2012
The American Dialect Society voted "occupy" as the word of the year for 2011. The is the 22nd annual word of the year selected by the American Dialect Society. The same word was put on a list of banished words and phrases by Lake Superior State University.
Ben Zimmer, chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society, says, "It's a very old word, but over the course of just a few months it took on another life and moved in new and unexpected directions, thanks to a national and global movement. The movement itself was powered by the word."
Here is a list of some of the other winning words at the society's annual words of the year vote:
- Most Useful: humblebrag - expression of false humility, especially by celebrities on Twitter
- Most Creative: Mellencamp - a woman who has aged out of being a "cougar"
- Most Unnecessary: bi-winning - term used by Charlie Sheen to describe himself pridefully, dismissing accusations of being bipolar
- Most Outrageous: assholocracy - rule by obnoxious multi-millionaires
- Most Euphemistic: job creator - a member of the top one-percent of moneymakers
- Most Likely to Success: cloud - online space for the large-scale processing and storage of data
- Least Likely to Succeed: brony - adult male fan of the My Little Pony cartoon franchise
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