WORDSPEAK
The word of the year
ANAND
"WORDSPEAK" readers often e-mail examples of words that catch their fancy. These include what may be called "new" words, or words that have entered the language recently, some even during the past few months. Readers interested in the development of language would notice, as I have, that most of these are "vogue words", flash in the pans that — to borrow a pop music expression — are here today and gone later today.
Words of 2004
And then are the words that don't sink that quickly. These, every once in a while, are reported in the media as the words that have made into the OED. Here is a compilation of words of both kinds, some sent by readers and others that I came across, as my homage to the year 2004. Some of these may have gained currency only in certain parts of the world.
"Wardrobe malfunction", an example of the classic vogue word, caught readers' fancy after American pop singer Janet Jackson's brief breast exposure at the music show at Super Bowl. Another already forgotten word is "Kerryitis", made popular at the time of U.S. presidential election, meaning "compulsive media coverage of the campaign activities of John Kerry". Two other words from the same platter might survive until 2008: "horse-race journalism" (focusing on who is winning rather than important policy issues) and "frontrunneritis" (a tendency to focus on individuals who look like the leading competitors either before or early within the election campaign).
Words that had more universal appeal: "celebrity justice": about an increasing number of celebrities having run-ins with the law; "nearshoring": as U.S. high tech firms lost jobs to offshore companies in Asia, some Canadian firms offered themselves as "nearshore" alternatives. "Orange Revolution": Supporters of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko turned out en masse bedecked in orange. "Janjaweed": pro-government Sudanese Arab militias. "Bird flu" (avian flu) that made headlines in India last year, also made it into the latest Oxford, published in June.
Certain words became popular, probably, only in Canada. I have included these to show how the formation of neologisms often reflects the preoccupations of a society. "Strippergate", maybe the thousandth variation with the infamous - gate suffix, referred to the commotion over a temporary residence permit given by the Canadian Immigration Minister to a Romanian exotic dancer who had worked on the minister's election campaign. "MOOTWA", an acronym for Military Operations Other Than War, came from a book about Canadians with the U.N. peacekeepers.
Politics, war, technology, relationships, food, fashion and money are some of the contexts where newly-coined words have a straying power. "Latte factor", heard during an Oprah Winfrey TV show in 2004, refers to "cash wasted on those seemingly insignificant purchases we make every day which, though small (a drink or snack in a café, for example), over time add up to a significant amount of money". "Hyper-dating", refers to the practice of dating lots of different people over a short period of time, and is also used in reference to Internet dating. "Olympic tourists" were not merely the "millions of spectators flocking to watch the Games and enjoy Athens, but a pointed reference to those athletes who had no chance of winning a medal and were merely out to enjoy being part of the Olympic team".
"Togethering" is likely to become popular in the U.S. because of the growing importance of family in the post-9/11 (another neologism) culture. It was first used in a press release from Walt Disney World in 2003, and has been trademarked by a U.S. travel-marketing firm. A blend of the words global and obesity, the noun "globesity" was coined in a World Health Organization report, suggesting that the widespread problem of obesity, particularly in the developed nations, represents a more serious health risk than smoking. The Guardian reported in 2004 that people who were aichmophobic (frightened of needles) and tyranophobic (frightened of injections) would be relieved to know that a new technique called "microscission" can deliver anaesthetics and drugs without triggering either of the afore-mentioned phobias.
And the award goes to...
The Word of the Year for 2004, by popular consensus, was "blog" (short for weblog), meaning a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer. For one, it was the word most often looked up on Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Bloggers were among the first to cast doubt on a CBS television report challenging President Bush's military service. CBS later admitted that the report was based on questionable documents.
E-mail the author: anand@journalist.com
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