Every year, various dictionaries like to come up with a Word of the Year. Sometimes the dictionaries agree; sometimes they don’t. In 2022 dictionaries all went their own ways — as did the American Dialect Society, which does its own words (many of them in various categories) of the year at a special ceremony, which I have attended and participated in on Zoom, but not this year.
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) left it up to the public to decide its word of the year for the first time. (The American Dialect Society always lets the public decide, but more about them next week.) Over 340,000 people participated. The winner? goblin mode, which received 93% of the votes. And I never even heard of it. The OED defines it as “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.”
Apparently, goblin mode was first coined in 2009 on Twitter, but went viral in 2022. The term appealed to those who rejected the idea of returning to “normal life” and leaving their homes after the pandemic. It also can refer to rebelling against the “increasingly unattainable aesthetic standards and unsustainable lifestyles exhibited on social media.”
Merriam-Webster
Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com named woman as its word of the year, after a 1,400% spike in searches over 2022.
The word was frequently searched as people explored what it meant amid debates over transgender rights.
While Dictionary.com defines the word as “an adult female person,,” it also emphasizes that “the word belongs to each and every woman – however they define themselves.”
Collins Dictionary
Collins Dictionary (does anyone have one of these?) named permacrisis as its word of the year. It describes permacrisis as “an extended period of instability and insecurity.”
The world has certainly faced a variety of crises this year, from the war in Ukraine to the cost-of-living crisis.
This dictionary says the term “perfectly embodies the dizzying sense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another, as we wonder bleakly what new horrors might be around the corner.”
American Dialect Society (ADS)
The American Dialect Society voters have selected the suffix -ussy as the all-around word of the year. I have never heard of it. My daughter has never heard of it. I guess you have to be of the TikTok generation. I have looked up the suffix in various websites, and I still cannot figure out what it means or how to use it.
“The selection of the suffix -ussy highlights how creativity in new word formation has been embraced online in venues like TikTok,” Ben Zimmer, chair of the ADS New Words Committee and language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, said. “The playful suffix builds off the word pussy to generate new slang terms. The process has been so productive lately on social media sites and elsewhere that it has been dubbed -ussification.”
In a Vulture article by Bethy Squires, she says, “Riffing off ‘bussy’ (a portmanteau of ‘boy’ and ‘pussy’), now everything is a cat or a cavity. A calzone is a pizzussy. A wine bottle has a winussy.”
You figure it out!
Arlene Miller
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