Once again, the American Dialect Society has released its words of the year for 2003. Each year, the Society votes on words invented that year (or which gained prominence that year) and announce winners in various categories.
Given the war on Iraq, many of the words centered around that theme:
embed: verb, to place a journalist with troops or a political campaign. Noun, a journalist who is so placed.
pre-emptive self-defense: noun, an attack before a possible attack.
weapons of mass deception: plural noun, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war.
Most of those aren’t much of a surprise. However, several of them were rather amusing to me. For starters, ass-hat made the list for some reason, though it seems like I had heard that on South Park for some time now.
One of my favorites, though, is probably torture lite, a term so euphemistic that only the military could have come up with that one. Then again, pre-emptive self-defense also just rubs me the wrong way as a term seemingly designated for rationalization.
dude, you little things where the words are underlined and a mouse over are supposed to bring something up aren’t working in Safari, the best known browser.
Best known? Ummmm, sure.
Those “little things where the words are underlined…” have been a standard feature of HTML (although Alex often uses it incorrectly) for over four years. If Safari doesn’t make the title-tip text available to the user that’s hardly the fault of the content author. Looks like they’ve added support for it in the latest version anyway.
Hello,
I discovered that the Society existed when you published that delicious list in 2000 (Words of the Century). I have been an affectionate member ever since. How do I become one in reality? If I mention that I have dined with Richard Lederer, would that serve as an entree?
I have used the list with English students to spark conversation and as a writing prompt. Is there a complete, updated list? I see that I can search one year at a time, but I would have been in touch long before this if I weren’t so lazy…Pander to my vices and email me a current list? In advance, thank you. Let me know how I can further the good work.
Sincerely,
Barbara Amster