mind-meld

In science fiction, this is a (supposed) technique for the psychic fusion of two or more minds, permitting unrestricted communication or deep understanding. Originally from the US television series Star Trek, the use has extended beyond the original sci-fi context: one quote featuring in the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary from N.Y. Mag reads “The next [moment], he’s mind-melding with an ABC News producer about educational technology initiatives.”

omnishambles

Coined by the writers of the satirical television programme The Thick Of It, an omnishambles is a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, and is characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations. Omnishambles was selected as the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2012.

cowabunga

Cowabunga was first popularized by a character on the US television programme Howdy Doody in the 1950s and 1960s. It later became associated with surfing culture and was further popularized by use on the US television cartoon programme Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987–96).

d’oh

Perhaps most commonly associated with Homer Simpson from the American cartoon series The Simpsons (1989–), created by Matt Groening. When frustrated about things not going well, the beer-loving, incompetent patriarch of the dysfunctional family exclaims ‘D’oh!’. Dan Castellaneta – the voice of Homer Simpson – notes that the scripts for The Simpsons only ever read ‘annoyed grunt’, and not ‘D’oh!’. Dan took inspiration for Homer’s ‘D’oh!’ from a similar noise made by the nemesis character in Laurel and Hardy. D’oh has been recorded (as doh, d’oh, and dooh) in the OED as early as 1945, with the current first citation from a BBC radio script.

much?

The OED uses these quotes from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer film to illustrate this usage: “A stranger, walking the other way, bumps into Buffy, doesn’t stop… Buffy. Excuse much! Not rude or anything.” The use of ‘much’ in this way was popularized by the Buffy film and the television series derived from it, but the first OED citation is from a 1978 Saturday Night Live transcript. Find out more about Buffy‘s other distinctive words and sentence structures in our blog post about the language of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

boom-boom

This phrase was popularized in Britain as the catchphrase of the children’s television puppet Basil Brush, which first appeared in 1953. Boom-boom is used to draw attention to a joke or pun, especially one that the speaker or writer regards as weak, obvious, or laboured. The OED lists Monty Python’s Flying Circus as its first citation for boom-boom, with the quote “I’ve got a chauffeur and every time I go to the lavatory he drives me potty! Boom-boom!”

Tardis

An acronym of Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, ‘Tardis’ is the name in the science-fiction BBC television series Doctor Who (first broadcast in 1963) of a time machine that resembles a police telephone box on the outside, but is much larger on the inside. Tardis is now used as a synonym for ‘time machine’ but also occasionally for a building or container that is in reality much larger than it seems. Illustrative quotes from the OED include: “10 Downing Street is like the ‘TARDIS’—it is much bigger inside than it looks on the outside.” Referring to the sense of a time machine, there are quotes like this: “This ground. . . is like a Tardis, transporting me back to the days of playing in front of stately homes or in some noble lord’s grounds.”

This article originally appeared on the OxfordWords blog.

Oxford Dictionaries Online is a free site offering a comprehensive current English dictionary, grammar guidance, puzzles and games, and a language blog; as well as up-to-date bilingual dictionaries in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The premium site, Oxford Dictionaries Pro, features smart-linked dictionaries and thesauruses, audio pronunciations, example sentences, advanced search functionality, and specialist language resources for writers and editors.

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When people think of GIFs, they often imagine a silly animation for a quick joke. But like any medium, it has potential beyond our cat-centric imagination. “The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace,” Head of US Dictionaries, Katherine Martin, recently commented. So it’s only appropriate to highlight a few GIFers who take the file format beyond a basic form.

(1) New York Public Library’s Stereogranimator

Stereographs, common in the 19th and early 20th century, paired two slightly different photographs together to trick the eye into creating perspective and a three-dimensional image. Now, we can experience something akin to that through the GIF animation (or GIFing) of NYPL Labs Stereogranimator. The site includes more than 39,000 items from the stereograph collections of The New York Public Library, as well as nearly 650 stereographs from the Boston Public Library. The general public — and scholars — can now easily see (and share) 19th-century stereographic images in a whole new way.

GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator

(2) Elspeth Reeve

Can GIFs be used in the serious work of journalism? Poynter’s Ann Friedman cooked up a handy journalist guide back in August, while New York Times’ Still Life series used GIFs to complement their articles on summer spaces, but The Atlantic Wire’s Elspeth Reeve stands out. From her coverage of the Olympics to the presidential debates, she uses GIFs to provide context and richness to her work. While GIFs are most often used as one-offs, Reeve constructs a narrative with image and text.

McKayla Maroney's vault. GIF by Elspeth Reeve.

(3) Gustavo Fajardo

The art world is always slightly ahead of the curve, and artists have been using GIFs to great effect long before the rest of us. Artists working with GIFs often play with graphic design and basic forms. Moreover, many GIF artists explore problems of modern life, particularly our tensions with technology. I’m cheating many fabulous artists by naming just one, so I encourage you to explore the GIF art world. (Thank you to Grove Art editor Jenny Bantz for her assistance.)

“Her father was a horse killer” (Genealogy decompressed 7.7) Series inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Metagenealogia” 2012. Work by Gustavo Fajardo

(4) Infinity Imagined

Who’s out there GIFing for science? Infinity Imagined is a science Tumblr that explains many phenomenon (often beautifully) with GIFs. The animations help people understand patterns and processes better, such as how waves and ripples work. Infinity Imagined covers many aspects of science from physics to biology to fractals. (Hat tip to Stacey Thinx / It’s Okay to Be Smart Joe / Maria Popova.)

MRI scans of a human brain. GIF by Infinity Imagined

(5) NatGeo-GIFs

While not an official outlet for National Geographic, Felipe of São Paulo captures beautiful nature scenes, many from National Geographic films, in brief bursts. His smooth work lacks the characteristic jolts of many GIFs and creates a small cinematic experience for the viewer.

Although I’ve titled this post “Five GIFers for the serious-minded,” it’s important to recognize the flexibility and importance of humor. Our UK Word of the Year originated on a satirical British television show. Wit, invention, and genius are not restricted to so-called worthy endeavors. And it’s okay to laugh in an art museum.

And of course, please share your thoughts on the best GIFers in the comments below. There’s a whole world out there to discover.

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

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Reaction has been mixed from people around the United States and the world to the USA Word of the Year, so I thought I’d bring together a few highlights. Don’t forget the GIF WOTY confusables!

Jessica Roy for BetaBeat: “Now, the GIF has received the ultimate sign of zeitgeisty approval”

 
 
Marie Meyers for GeekSugar: “You go, GIF!”

 
 
Katy Steinmetz for TIME: “But the selection still seems to herald a post-recession era — a world where instead of counting pennies, we’re free to goof off on Reddit all day.”

 
 
Katy Waldman for Slate: “The bad news is that Oxford has instead selected GIF as its USAWotY—and even if GIF were actually a W, as opposed to another acronym, we would find the choice hard to forgive.”

 
 
Mark Raby for Geek.com: “Choosing GIF just because it is now recognized as a new part of speech seems to miss that mark. Oh well, if only there was a clever way to express disappointment on the Internet…”

 
 
Hannah Sung speaks with Dave McGinn at the Globe and Mail (video)

 
 
Laura Beck for Jezebel: “I ask you, what’s doper than a GIF? Except for any real word ever? You can’t answer that, can you.”

 
 
Nathan Ingraham for The Verge: “It’s high praise for a file format, but we’d be hard-pressed to disagree.”

 
 
Jan Doll for The Atlantic Wire: “So, we were giffed. Does that change things for you?”
(It’s quite hard to encapsulate the range of emotions in this article; I’m happy to take suggestions.)

 
 
Yasha Wallin for GOOD: “Given our affinity for animated memes, we think GIF was a solid choice as word of the year.”

 
 
Mario Aguilar for Gizmodo: “I think I’m going to puke a Tumblr’s worth of emotions because GIF has been named the Oxford American Dictionary’s 2012 word of the year. ZOMG!”
(And thank you for stodgy, infinitely preferable to hoity-toity)

 
 
Kyrie O’Connor for MeMo (Houston Chronicle): “Quite possibly the worst word of the year ever”

 
 
Christine Erickson for Mashable: “After 25 years of fighting for relevancy, the GIF has received the acknowledgement it deserves”

 
 
Any other excruciating reviews or wild cheers to add?

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

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(1) Oxford Dictionaries USA and The New Oxford American Dictionary (and Oxford Dictionaries UK and Oxford Dictionary of English) are not the Oxford English Dictionary. OUP publishes many dictionaries and the OED is only one of them.

(2) GIF (verb) is word of the year. We’re well aware that the acronym GIF has existed since 1987; it is the evolution of the acronym into a verb that we find lexically interesting. The language has evolved with the use of the GIF. (Additionally, Word of the Year doesn’t have to be a new word; it just has to exemplify the year. Higgs Boson and Super Pac are decades old, and they were both on our shortlist this year.)

(3) Oxford Dictionaries defines word as “a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed.” GIF, whether used as a noun in the traditional way or in the novel use as a verb that we have showcased in our Word of the Year choice, fits this definition. Many common words, such as radar and AIDS, are acronyms. The Word of the Year is a light-hearted effort by our lexicography team to showcase developments in the English lexicon. Words chosen will only be entered into our dictionaries if they meet our standards of evidence.

(4) People began using GIF as a verb this year. It is still a relatively new usage, so you may not have heard it. We offered a few selections in our previous pieces and a few web searches will show you how people are using the language (for example, the Tumblr hashtags gifed or giffing). Is it such an illogical step? Consider when you stopped searching things on Google and started Googling.

(5) GIFs may have roles beyond snark. They’re used in increasingly diverse contexts, and as much as quick humor is involved, the same gif can be recontextualized multiple times. One poorly-made animation can take on a multiplicity of meanings. This recent interview on Neiman Journalism Lab with Jessica Bennett covered many of the more serious use of GIFs — and the piece is a great read.

(6) The use of GIFs exploded in new areas in 2012, particularly animated GIFs, hence the importance of the verbal form. Check out a Google Trend search of “gif”. However, the file format’s overall share in web images is declining. Whether it’s a passing trend to vanish in 2013 remains to be seen. (*updated: 15 Nov, see below)

(7) We appreciate all the GIF puns. Keep them coming.

Do you have any questions about GIF? About the Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year? Leave them in the comments below.

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

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Image credit: All images are hyperlinked to their sources. NatGeo for the sky, NYPL the ruins, WSWCM for Britney.

*Updated 15 November 2012 to include information from Zachary M. Seward’s article from The Atlantic.

The post Six WOTY confusables about GIF appeared first on OUPblog.

A further celebration of Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year ‘gif’ with a variation of Hamlet‘s famous monologue. I’ve bolded the new words to make it easier to scan for the changes.

To gif, or not to gif–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of crude animation
Or to take arms against a sea of static
And by opposing end them. To stop, to skip–
No more–and by a frame to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That image is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To stop, to skip–
To skip–perchance to blog: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of stopping what blogs may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal file,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of extension.
For who would bear the whips and jumps of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, broadband’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his tumblr make
With a bare bodkin? Who would jpegs bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of connection dropped,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than follow others that we know not of?
Thus file type does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
Les Horribles Cernettes! — Nymphs, in thy upload
Be all my sins remembered

Do you have any poetry to celebrate the gif? Or are you still stumped?

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

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Image credit: David Tennant as Hamlet.

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Many people are curious about the process behind the selection of Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year and I thought it would be appropriate to express this in gif form. Here’s my completely biased perspective as blog editor on my first Word of the Year committee.

You receive an email saying you’re on the Word of the Year committee and you feel so important.

 
 
But you have to wait a couple weeks for the actual longlist from which you submit your top five choices and the reasons why.

 
 
Serious thought is given on lexical interest, significance to this year, and the impact of the word. (Will usage increase? Does it capture the zeitgeist?)

 
 
But you’re ruthless in your selections.

 
 
A couple weeks after that we receive the shortlist, which contains words you’re not thrilled about.

 
 
Finally, the Word of the Year meeting takes place.

 
 
We first tackle a couple recent additions to the list that are significant and interesting, but potentially insensitive. Everyone concurs this isn’t the best choice.

 
 
We next tackle some intriguing new political words, but everyone is suffering from election fatigue.

 
 
Someone suggests a word that Gawker was making fun of five years ago and you don’t see how it says “2012”.

 
 
Someone else suggests a word everyone else hates.

 
 
Marketing is really pushing for a word, but editorial doesn’t find it lexically significant. Tension rises.

 
 
Then someone starts talking enthusiastically about the Higgs boson, but no one else cares.

 
 
The meeting becomes increasingly awkward as no clear frontrunner emerges.

 
 
Words continue to be nominated and eliminated, and we are in danger of being there all day.

 
 
Finally there’s a secret ballot by which time everyone is approaching one of two emotional states:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And the decision is made although no one seems particularly thrilled about it. You have to look vaguely supportive.

 
 
Our editorial team has to run it past their dictionary overlords, who disapprove.

 
 
One editor expresses interest in the word GIF.

 
 
And you agree perhaps this would make a better candidate for WOTY.

 
 
So you ask around for people’s thoughts.

 
 
Finally, a pitch for GIF as WOTY is made. You brace for the response.

 
 
But people actually like the word.

 
 
GIF has saved the day.

 
 
We must ensure commitment.

 
 
And then we finally have WOTY!

 
 
And all you want to do is tell people.

 
 
But you can’t share the news of the selection. It’s top secret.

 
 
And in all the bottled-up excitement, you realize you have to do this all again next year.

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
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View more about the New Oxford American Dictionary on the or visit oxforddictionaries.com.

Image credit: I have made a good faith attempt to find the originators of these gifs, but I can only in certainty ascertain those which are stamped with the originator (example: NatGeo Gifs). If you’re the creator of one of these gifs, please let me know which and I’d be happy to link back to your site. Also let me know if you’d like your gif removed.

The post How we decide Word of the Year [GIFed] appeared first on OUPblog.

Part of the strength of new words is their flexibility — that they can grow, change, and adapt. This elasticity helps cement their place in our language, rather than a brief life in slang. So to present omnishambles’s impact more fully, I’ve rounded up five variations upon it and proposed five additions of my own.

Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker, the character who originated the word omnishambles, in "The Thick of It." (c) BBC

Omnishambolic: Adjectival form of omnishambles. Citation: The Independent.

Romneyshambles: The disastrous visit of then presidential candidate Mitt Romney to the United Kingdom in July 2012. Citation: The Atlantic.

Energyshambles: A characterization of the UK government’s energy policy, following several u-turns and contradictory announcements. Citation: The New Statesman.

Euroshambles: A characterization of the Eurozone crisis (actually in use since at least 2000). Citation: The Economist.

Olympishambles: A scandal surrounding the London 2012 Olympic Games security contractor G4S as they lacked enough staff for the event, existing staff lacked qualifications and sufficient background checks, and they exploited unpaid workers at the Queen’s Jubilee with the promise of possible Olympic employment. Citation: BBC.

Ennuishambles: A condition during severe bouts of ennui when everything in life seems to have gone wrong as a consequence of affected detachment. Commonly found in people who studied French at university. (ennui + omnishambles)

Nomnishambles: Mental and physical lethargy following excessive consumption of food. (nom nom + omnishambles)

Somnishambles: The feeling of disorientation upon waking, often characterized by inability to recognize familiar surroundings. (somnium (Latin for dream; sleep) + omnishambles)

Commishambles: The failure to detect communists in your midst despite strenuous attempts. See: McCarthyism. (commie + omnishambles)

Feminishambles: The state of disorder advertisers imply women will be in without the purchase and use of their product. See: That Mitchell and Webb Look. (femina (Latin: woman) + omnishambles)

Any missing? Have your own ideas? Leave them below.

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

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Today, Oxford Dictionaries announced the Oxford Dictionaries UK Word of the Year for 2012. Fiona McPherson was one of the lexicographers on the judging panel and here are her reflections on the shortlist.

A common misconception about the work of a lexicographer is that we sit around in the manner of a cabal each week and argue about what words to include or reject. The fantasy is that we each suggest a word or two and then, after a heated debate, vote, with the result that some words emerge victorious and begin the journey to the dictionary page, while those that are blackballed are consigned to lexical oblivion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, we lexicographers do do something approximating this when we meet to choose the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year. We sit round a table, reviewing words which have made a big impact on the English language over the past year, and try to pick the stand-out one.

The refreshing element from a lexicographer’s point of view is that we don’t have to try and gauge whether the word will be a flash-in-the-pan, a one hit wonder, sticking around for a short while before fizzling out, or whether it might have some lasting currency. These words won’t necessarily find themselves in an Oxford Dictionary anytime soon — many will be far too new or ephemeral — but that isn’t really the point. Instead, we are able to focus on the new additions to our vocabulary each year that have been influenced by popular culture, sport, politics, and other current affairs.

Without further ado, though, let’s look at 2012’s UK Word of the Year.

Ta dah! And the winner is…

Omnishambles! Coined by the writers of the satirical television programme The Thick Of It, an omnishambles is a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, and is characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations.

Why omnishambles? Well, it was a word everyone liked, which seemed to sum up so many of the events over the last 366 days in a beautiful way. It’s funny, it’s quirky, and it has broken free of its fictional political beginnings, firstly by spilling over into real politics, and then into other contexts. If influence is any indication of staying power, it has already staked its claim by being linguistically productive in its own right, producing a number of related coinages. While many of them are probably humorous one-offs, their very existence shows that the omnishambles itself has entered at least the familiar parlance, if not quite the common parlance. And for every Romneyshambles (coined in the UK to describe US presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s doubts that London had what it took to host a successful Olympic Games) and omnivoreshambles (detailing the furore over the proposed badger cull in England and Wales) there is the far more sober adjective omnishambolic.

Not just a one-horse race

One thing that became apparent quite early on in our decision-making process was that 2012 has been a year of contrasts, which meant that our decision was no foregone conclusion. There were lots of candidates which made our shortlist, and there were plenty of lows for the language to accommodate as well as highs. Eurogeddon, for example, referring to the potential financial collapse of those European countries that have adopted the Euro. Or the military phrase green-on-blue denoting an attack made on one’s side by forces that are seen as being neutral.

But it was also a great year of celebration and sheer joy at the exploits and achievements of elite athletes who wowed us with their skill and dedication. Arguably the event of the year in the UK, it is unsurprising that the Olympics also left its mark on our language. Where would the event have been without the Games Makers, those volunteers who ensured that the games progressed smoothly and all those attending were able to do so with ease? People up and down the country (and perhaps throughout the world) were Bolting and doing the Mobot as they celebrated the victories of those eponymous athletes.

The Olympics even gave greater prominence to two words which are not new, but which manage every few years to cause furious debate: the verbs to medal and to podium. In the sporting sense, medal has been around since the 1960s; podium is not quite so old. In Olympic contexts, both have very similar meanings. After all, if you podium, you are winning either a gold, silver, or bronze medal. Which is the same as medalling. It’s only when you get to other sporting events — where medals aren’t awarded — that podium comes into its own (and has a meaning akin to being placed). Tempting as it was to choose one of the Olympic words, it remains to be seen whether (m)any of them will have a wider application, although they helped embellish the story of the year.

Same themes, different words

Where would neologists be without the old favourites of politics and popular culture? In addition to the aforementioned, -gate continued to be as productive as ever in politics with Liborgate (the scandal surrounding some banks fixing their LIBOR rate) and pastygate (the scandal surrounding the discovery that UK Prime Minister David Cameron falsely claimed to have eaten a pasty). Another old word, pleb, became unexpectedly ubiquitous and honourable mentions must go to devo-max (an alternative to full independence whereby Scotland could get increased fiscal autonomy) and Grexit (from Greek and exit, the hypothetical scenario whereby Greece leaves the Eurozone and readopts their previous currency, the drachma).

It was hard to ignore the publishing phenomenon that was Fifty Shades of Grey, not least because it created a whole new genre: mummy porn, erotica written for or read by women. The term itself is somewhat disparaging, but has its linguistic predecessors in terms like chick lit, twit lit (novels written on Twitter), and others. We also saw the evidence of the term e-rotica, a rather apt nod to the fact that the phenomenon was fuelled by a surge of sales on e-readers.

Multitasking made easy?

No discussion of candidates for Word of the Year would be complete without considering how technology informs our language. We saw the emergence of second screening, the activity of watching television whilst simultaneously using a smartphone, laptop, etc., often so as to be able to use a social media site to post about what was happening. This particular method of preserving and recording the moment for posterity seems to run slightly counter to another shortlisted word from the world of social media: YOLO (you only live once). Share your thoughts in the comments below: was omnishambles your word of the year?

Fiona McPherson is Senior Content Editor for Oxford Dictionaries and has medalled in four types of dance. She is a regular contributor to the OxfordWords blog, where this article also appeared.

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Today, Oxford Dictionaries announced the Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year for 2012. Katherine Martin was one of the lexicographers on the judging panel and here are her reflections on the shortlist.

GIF    verb to create a GIF file of (an image or video sequence, especially relating to an event): he GIFed the highlights of the debate

The GIF, a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations, turned 25 this year, but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier. GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun. The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace.

Highlights of the year in GIFing

January 2012: The New York Public Library launches the Stereogranimator, a tool enabling users to make GIFs of vintage stereographs in the library’s collection to create an illusion of the 3D experience of viewing through a stereoscope.

7 February 2012: First post on the GIFtastic tumblr whatshouldwecallme.

15 June 2012: 25th anniversary of the GIF.

July 2012: 20th anniversary of first GIF (and first photograph) ever posted to the World Wide Web.

July 2012: GIFs contribute to the viral ubiquity of Gangnam Style.

August 2012: The GIF vaults to prominence as a tool in covering Olympic events, marshaled into use both for serious analysis and humorous effect. Blogging for the New York Times, Jenna Wortham called GIFs “the perfect medium for the Olympics.”

October 2012: Tumblr and the Guardian team up to live-GIF the presidential debates.

Origin, pronunciation, and spelling

GIF is an acronym from graphic interchange format, coined as a noun in 1987. The recent development of verbal GIF is an example of a linguistic process called conversion, or zero-formation. Verbs are often created from nouns in this way in English, ranging from venerable words such as to blanket and to fork to other recent technology neologisms like to Google and to Photoshop.

GIF may be pronounced with either a soft g (as in giant) or a hard g (as in graphic). The programmers who developed the format preferred a pronunciation with a soft g (in homage to the commercial tagline of the peanut butter brand Jif, they supposedly quipped “choosy developers choose GIF”). However, the pronunciation with a hard g is now very widespread and readily understood. Whichever pronunciation you use, it should of course be the same for both the noun and the verb.

GIF is usually spelled in all capitals in its uninflected form, but the addition of verbal endings presents problems. The examples of verbal GIF collected by Oxford’s lexicographers represent a dizzying variety of forms, including such infelicities as GIFfing and .giffed (with a period prefixed as in the file extension .gif). The most common form features GIF in capitals but the inflected endings in lowercase (GIFed, GIFing), so that is the spelling we have chosen to use here. However, there is also very strong evidence for an all-lowercase spelling with the f duplicated (giffed, giffing), perhaps by analogy with the verb riff.  With such a new word, it isn’t surprising that a single spelling hasn’t yet become established; Oxford’s lexicography team will be watching to see which version ultimately wins out.

Other words on our 2012 shortlist

GIF had strong competition this year from some other words that our team felt captured the zeitgeist of 2012:

Eurogeddon: the potential financial collapse of the European Union countries that have adopted the euro, envisaged as having catastrophic implications for the region’s economic stability [from euro + (Arma)geddon]

Higgs boson: a subatomic particle whose existence is predicted by the theory that unified the weak and electromagnetic interactions

MOOC: massive open online course; a university course offered free of charge via the Internet

nomophobia: anxiety caused by being without one’s mobile phone [from no + mo(bile) + phobia]

Super PAC: a type of independent political action committee which may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, and individuals but is not permitted to contribute to or coordinate directly with parties or candidates

superstorm: an unusually large and destructive storm

YOLO: you only live once; typically used as rationale or endorsement for impulsive or irresponsible behavior

About the Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year

The Word of the Year is chosen annually as a word that has attracted interest and that embodies in some way the ethos of the year. It need not have been coined within the past twelve months and it does not have to be a word that will endure for a significant length of time: it is very difficult to accurately predict which new words will have staying power. And while the Word of the Year has great resonance for 2012, that doesn’t mean that it will automatically go into any of our English Dictionaries.

Katherine Connor Martin is a lexicographer in OUP’s New York office. She is a regular contributor to the OxfordWords blog, where this article also appeared.

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has been named Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2011!

Squeezed middle: the section of society regarded as particularly affected by inflation, wage freezes, and cuts in public spending during a time of economic difficulty, consisting principally of those people on low or middle incomes.

Every year, the dictionaries teams at Oxford University Press in the UK and the US put their heads together and come up with a Word (or Phrase) of the Year. This year, for the first time, both the UK and US teams have agreed on a global Word of the Year: squeezed middle.

While squeezed middle is British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband’s term for those seen as bearing the brunt of government tax burdens while having the least with which to relieve it, the Word of the Year committee in the US felt it had good resonance in the US, as well. Susie Dent, spokesperson for Oxford Dictionaries, said: “The speed with which squeezed middle has taken root, and the likelihood of its endurance while anxieties deepen, made it a good global candidate for Word of the Year.”

The Word of the Year is a word, or expression, that we feel has attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date. It need not have been coined within the past twelve months and it does not have to be a word that will stick around for a good length of time: it is very difficult to accurately predict which new words will have staying power. And while the Word of the Year has great resonance for 2011, it doesn’t mean that the word will automatically go into any of our English Dictionaries. We always wait to see good evidence that a word or expression will stay the course before we include it in an Oxford dictionary.

The US Short List

This year saw a particularly strong shortlist of contenders for Word of the Year. The shortlisted words for the US and UK differ, reflecting differences between more local issues and culture. For more information on the UK shortlist, visit the OxfordWords blog.

In alphabetical order, here is the US selection of shortlisted words:

Arab Spring n.: a series of anti-government uprisings in various countries in North Africa and the Middle East, beginning in Tunisia in December 2010. [After Prague Spring, denoting the 1968 reform movement in Czechoslovakia.]

Bunga bunga n.: used in reference to parties hosted by the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, at which various illicit sexual activities were alleged to have taken place.

Clicktivism n.: the use of social media and other online methods to promote a cause. [Blend of click and activism.]

Crowdfunding n.: the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. [After crowdsourcing.]

Fracking n.: the forcing open of fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high pressure, especially to extract oil or gas. [Shortened < hydraulic fracturing.]

Gamification n.: the application of concepts and techniques from games to other areas of activity, for instance as an online marketing technique.

Occupy n.: the name given to an international movement protesting against perceived economic injustice by occupying buildings or public places and staying there for an extended period of time. [From the imperative form of the verb occupy, as in the phrase Occupy Wall Street.

The 99 percent: the bottom 99% of income earners, regarded collectively.

Tiger mother n.: a demanding mother who pushes her children to high achievement using methods regarded as typical of Asian childrearing. [Coined by Amy Chua in her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.]

Sifi n.: a bank or other financial institution regarded as so vital to the functioning of the overall economy that it cannot be allowed to fail. [Acronym from systemically important financial institution. Pronounced "SIFF-ee", rhyming with "jiffy".]

Thoughts? Leave a comment!

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By Susie Dent

Let’s hear a woot (or not?) for the big society!
Each year, as the announcement of OUP UK’s Word of the Year approaches, I’m reminded of some words from the playwright Dennis Potter: ‘the trouble with words is that you never know whose mouth they’ve been in’. I sometimes wonder whether that’s why I like new words so much – mint-new shiny coinages that have no murky past and that crucially, have everything to play for.

But that can’t be the whole story, because, however romantically we like to imagine the making of new words – as a flash of inspiration by one individual in a single moment in time – the prosaic truth is that only 1% of all new words are really, really new. The vast majority is made up of older words which have been resurrected and repurposed.

So, if it’s not for their absolute originality, what is it about new words that fascinates so? This year’s shortlist for the word of 2010 gives, I think, a pretty good view of the attractions on offer.

OUP UK’s 2010 Word of the Year Shortlist:

big society (winner): ‘a political concept whereby a significant amount of responsibility for the running of a society’s services is devolved to local communities and volunteers’

double-dip: ‘a recession during which a period of economic decline is followed by a brief period of growth followed by a further period of decline’

vuvuzela: ‘a long horn blown by fans at football matches in South Africa’

Tea Party: ‘a US political party that emerged from a movement of conservatives protesting against the federal government in 2009’

preloading: ‘the practice of drinking large quantities of alcohol at home before going out socially and then consuming more, usually to save money’

upcycling: ‘the reuse of discarded or waste material in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original’

top kill: ‘a procedure designed to seal a leaking oil well, whereby large amounts of a material heavier than the oil, e.g. mud, are pumped into the affected well’

woot: ‘used to express elation, enthusiasm, or triumph, especially in Internet forums, message boards, texts, etc.’

Los 33: ‘the group of thirty-three Chilean miners who were trapped underground for more than two months, emerging after their dramatic rescue to become national celebrities’. From the note written by one of them during their ordeal ‘Estamos bien en el refugio los 33’

showmance: ‘a romantic relationship that develops between actors during the course of making a film etc., or between participants in a TV show, either real or engineered for the sake of publicity’

clickjacking: ‘the malicious practice of manipulating a website user’s activity by concealing hyperlinks beneath legitimate clickable content, thereby causing the user to perform actions of which they are unaware’

tweeps: ‘people using the social networking service Twitter; a person’s followers on Twitter’

Boris bike: ‘(in London) a bike that is rentable for short periods of time under the scheme set up by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, as part of a bid to reduce traffic congestion in the city’

The real signs of the times
The first and most obvious gift that new words bring is an understanding of the times we’re living in. New words can collectively serve as the pithiest shorthand for what we are thinking and doing, right at this moment. Oxford’s shortlists for their word of the year in 2008 and 2009 left no doubt as to the impact of the recession on our vocabulary. We struggled to keep up as toxic debt, deleveraging, and quantitative easing muscled their way into currency.

Our final choice for the word of 2010, the coalition’s new dream of the big society, is no less a mirror of the times, in this case of the extraordinary political events of the year. The term’s success within a short period of time has been impressive, underscored by the ease with which it is now played upon: when the new PM visited China, both the Times and the Guardian headlined his challenge as ‘Cameron confronts the biggest society’.

Bottling history
A single word or phrase can often distil history as powerfully as any photograph, and many of the year’s crop of new, or newly resurrected, words and phrases are particularly event-driven. Los 33, a curious mixture of Spanish and English when spoken, was the only reference needed for the lost and saved Chilean miners and the entire spectacular story surrounding them. Earlier in the year top kill, like tsunami a decade before it, exemplified the passing of a hitherto technical term into the mainstream. The procedure, designed to secure a leaking oil well, sadly failed in the case of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Twittering on, and on…
At the start of the twenty-tens, social networking showed no let up in its influence on our lives and hence our language. Among the Twitter offshoots this year were twinterviews, tweetups, and the shortlisted tweeps, made up of ‘Twitter’ and ‘peeps’. Together with upcycling and clickjacking, tweeps provides a near-perfect example of the most productive process behind language change today, the blend.

Wordplaying for laughs
There is another big attraction which must score well with those casual observers of our language who lap up new words: they are fun. We may not relish all of them, but few of us could claim we weren’t that little bit curious when we heard showmance, vuvuzela (a wonderful example of the ready adoption of a foreign term when it suits), Boris bike, and upcycling. The virtual world’s bespoke cry of triumph, woot (or is it w00t?) can seem nonsensical to those outside the in-group. But then isn’t that the point? English arouses passion in its users like no other language. It has no owners: it belongs as much to those for whom it is a second or third language as to its native users, and it can go wherever it likes. New words are the brazen face that English shows the world, they are its shop window. Some delight; some disgust, but as long as they keep on coming, surely our mercurial language is safe.

Susie Dent is the adjudicator on Channel 4’s Countdown and author of What Made the Crocodile Cry, and How to Talk Like a Local. This article will also appear on Oxford Dictionaries Online.

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By Christine Lindberg

Popular culture . . .

In 2010, much of our uneasy fascination turned from zombie banks to plain old zombies. Well, maybe not “plain old.” It’s been a phenomenal year for zombies, who have commanded huge markets in the entertainment industry and a seemingly insatiable fan base.

As zombies roamed the planet, another breed of “outsiders”—nerds and geeks—continued to transcend the “lowliness” assigned to them in the 1950s. Just a generation ago, the word gleek (a fan of TV’s Glee) would have been considered a putdown, but now it is more a term of affection and is wholly embraced by the gleeks themselves.

One of television’s most familiar out-of-step characters will be missed when Michael Scott exits The Office at the end of this season, leaving us to wonder if there’s anyone else who can make the totally resistible phrase “that’s what she said” so irresistible?

Irresistible food is the subject of countless hours of cable TV broadcasting, and the latest mantra associated with the tasty and the tantalizing is akin to “yum yum,” but is even more reminiscent of one cookie-loving blue denizen of Sesame Street (we just know you’ve heard CM lost in an “om nom nom nom” moment)—so salivate when you say nom nom!

And cover your ears when you go to a South African soccer match. It was a worldwide phenomenon when the vuvuzela left its blaring mark on the 2010 World Cup. In the US, this deafening horn may now be the most widely known thing to come out of international soccer since Pelé.

Fans of America’s national pastime discovered their own phenomenon in 2010 when Major League Baseball introduced TagOramic. Through the technology of panoramic photography, integrated Facebook support, and “tag” icons, attendees of games are finding themselves in the zoomed-in photos and tagging themselves for subsequent viewing and sharing with friends. Tagging is not exactly new to Facebook users, but baseball has widened the field (so to speak!), and at Oxford, we’re watching this specific sense of “tag,” which may well gain a place in the dictionary.

Technology . . .

Modern popular culture is so deeply entwined in technology that it’s often difficult to find the line between the two. Our selections of retweet and webisode as NOAD Word of the Year  finalists are good examples. But the more our day-to-day lives involve some form (or many forms) of “connectivity,” the more vulnerable we are to the nefarious element that lurks in the recesses of our electronic universe. It’s no wonder that the technical terms to gain recognition through increased use during 2010 include clickjacking (the technique of concealing an undesirable website link behind a legitimate one), cybercasing (the use of personal information provided online to determine the most opportune time to rob a home or business), and scareware (unethical software that claims to detect computer viruses, and then urges the user to purchase [typically fake] virus protection). And we can’t overlook zombie computers, whose owners are unaware that their machines have been taken over by a hacker or virus—definitely not as entertaining as watching a video of villagers taken over by the walking dead!

Environment . . .

Thanks to the disastrous BP oil-spill, top kill made our list of WOTY finalists. Sadly it is only one among an unfortunate rundown of related scientific terms that the non-scientific community became aware (or at least reminded) of. To be sure, it was difficult in 2010 not to be instructed in the details of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), tar balls, blowout preventers, and cement plugs.

Economy . . .

The economic concerns of 2009 did not vaporize. And neither did public distrust of the banking industry. Resurrected from its roots in the 1930s, the term bankster (banker + gangster) has made an understandable comeback. The word is a bit punny and funny, but trying to bear up in a double-dip economy has been less than fun for too many.

Politics . . .

The midterm elections held on November 2 were preceded by months of the campaign patter that voters have come to expect ever since 1840, when William Henry Harrison (“Old Tip”) propelled himself into the White House with unprecedented electioneering. (Martin Van Buren was pretty much laid to rest by such ditties as “Old Tip, he wore a homespun coat, he had no ruffled shirt: wirt-wirt! / But Matt, he has the golden plate, and he’s a little squirt: wirt-wirt!”)

It would seem that 170 years later, partisan jabs continue to prompt campaign jargon. After years of being rankled by such Democratic sentiment as “Bush Won, US Nothing,” the political right enjoyed a number of recent campaign moments with suggestive references to Woe-bama.

Of course, NOAD’s selection of refudiate as its 2010 Word of the Year puts the spotlight on political celeb Sarah Palin’s presumably inadvertent blending of “refute” and “repudiate.” We are particularly fascinated that the interest in the word itself rapidly eclipsed the content Palin was conveying when she used “refudiate” in certain Twitter messages.

In 2010, New York’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, did not win his race, but he, too, has joined the ranks of those whose campaign vocabulary made us take notice. He ran as the unintimidatable choice for governor, and although the term gained some attention as a made-up, or nonce, word, it is logically constructed from un-, intimidate, and -able, and therefore means just what Paladino intended: “unable to be intimidated.” It may not roll easily off the lips, but the word has been used by others. In July 2009, it was featured in a noun sense when the popular Animal Planet series Whale Wars aired the episode “The Unintimidatables.”

Many New York voters may not have felt all that unintimidatable when their familiar levers behind drawn curtains had vanished in favor of the new paper ballot, a far cry from the drop-in-a-box paper ballots that New Yorkers were the first to adopt in 1889. Today, this new version is fed into an electronic scanner, making the whole process a little “too modern” for some voters, and making the term “paper ballot” ripe for dictionary clarification.

A recent addition to ballots across the country were candidates representing and/or supported by the Tea Party. This conservative political movement, noted for its anti-government protests, gained appreciable momentum during 2010, and even inspired the establishment of an alternative movement, the Coffee Party USA. (It’s anybody’s guess which beverage of choice may next emerge into a movement come 2011. Ovaltine, perhaps?)

Senior lexicographer Christine A. Lindberg is the principal content editor of Oxford’s American English dictionaries and thesauruses. Part of the original OUP US Dictionaries Program established in Connecticut in 1997, she currently works from her office in the Leatherstocking Region of New York State. Listen to a podcast with her here.

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By Ammon Shea

Every year, a group of people at OUP USA put our heads together and come up with a Word of the Year.  This is an example of a word (or expression) that we feel has attracted a great deal of new interest in the year to date.  It need not have been coined within the past twelve months (although it generally is a new word).  It does not have to be a word that will stick around for a good length of time (it is very difficult to accurately predict which new words will have staying power).  It does not even have to be a word that we plan on introducing into the dictionary (at least, not unless it seems fairly certain that it will stick around for a while).

An excellent example of all of this is the word refudiate, which was brought to prominence this year through its use by Sarah Palin, first in speech as a television commentator, and then in text as a twitter post.  Palin was certainly not the first person to use this word – in fact, it has come up in enough other places over the past hundred and twenty years that it seems fair to ask why refudiate isn’t in the dictionary already.

This word dates back at least to June 14^th 1891, when it appeared in a story in the Fort Worth Gazette, a Texas newspaper: “…it is the first declaration of how the party stands, and in great measure a refudiation of the charges of dickering…”

As Ben Zimmer pointed out, the word comes up again in 1925, this time in a newspaper headline in the Atlanta Constitution, on June 21^st: “Scandal Taint Refudiated In Teapot Case by Court, Fall Says in Statement.”

The use of refudiate occurred a number of other times, both in print and in documented speech.  The web site Politico describes how Senator Mike Dewine used it in 2006 (“Sherrod Brown needs to refudiate these comments”), and Mark Lieberman at Language Log has done a fine job of documenting its use in text prior to Palin’s use of it on twitter.

So if the word has been in use in some demonstrable fashion for well over a hundred years why hasn’t it already been included in the dictionary?  The closest it has come to being enshrined in a reference work is its appearance in Victoria Fromkin’s 1973 work, Speech Errors as Linguistic Evidence, in which she points out that it is representative of a common type of error, similar to ebvious (evident + obvious) and frowl (frown + scowl).  But every other time that refudiate has been used it was used in error, either intentionally or because the author simply (and somewhat reasonably) thought it was in fact a word.

Dictionaries typically do not include words that exist only because they are mistakes (unless the mistake becomes widespread enough that it enters the language).  For instance, the word volumptuous has been in use in English since at least 1704, when it appeared in a poem in The Athenian Oracle, a London periodical (“Thro’ painted Scenes of gay volumptuous Joys, The Drudges post to Brimstome-Miseries”).  Yet, even though it was used dozens of times throughout the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries, you will be hard-pressed to find it in a dictionary, for the simple reason that it has always been a misprint, an error in writing, or a fanciful use by some author.  In the unlikely event that a politician or other person in an extremely public position was to suddenly use the word volumptuous in such a fashion that it was on everyone’s lips, then it would become a word that is looked at in a different light.

There is a possibility that this word will now be picked up by enough people and used in print that it will find itself in a dictionary of the future.  The way that languages change and accrue new words and meanings may not be to everyone’s liking, but it is inexorable nonetheless, and English has been progressing this way for many hundreds of years.

It is entirely possible that refudiate will never find itself defined in an Oxford dictionary – it may be the linguistic mayfly that attracts our attention for but a short burst of time and then becomes just another fad we look back upon.  But candidates for Word of the Year need not have the promise of permanence – they are contending to be the word of this past year, and not necessarily every year to come.

And even though it may be merely an ephemeral glitch, mistakes in language can sometimes be tenacious, and have the ability to burrow in and achieve permanence.  After all, the word cocoa is nothing more than a corruption of the word cacao, yet few of us feel as though we are speaking incorrectly when we order one in a restaurant.

Granted, this mistaken use of cocoa for cacao happened a few hundred years ago, but who is to say that a hundred years from now our descendants won’t be proudly refudiating whatever it is that people refudiate in 2110?

Ammon Shea is the author of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages and The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads.  He has been reading almost nothing but dictionaries and assorted other reference works for more than a decade, and consequently is not overburdened with social invitations.  He lives in New York City with his wife, son, and an unseemly quantity of old books.

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If you haven’t heard – well, how haven’t you heard? “Refudiate” is the New Oxford American Dictionary‘s 2010 Word of the Year. (And no, that doesn’t mean “refudiate” has been added to the NOAD or any other Oxford dictionary.) In this quickcast, Michelle and Lauren talk with NOAD Senior Lexicographer Christine Lindberg, and take to the streets to see what people think of this special word – or shall we say word blend?

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Music by The Ben Daniels Band.

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Editor’s note: I love being right. I really, really love it. In July, I guessed that “refudiate” would be named Word of the Year, and TA-DAH! I was right. What Paul the Octopus was to the FIFA World Cup, I am to WOTY (may he rest in peace). But that’s enough about me because what’s really important is that…

Refudiate

has been named the New Oxford American Dictionary‘s 2010 Word of the Year!

refudiate verb used loosely to mean “reject”: she called on them to refudiate the proposal to build a mosque.
[origin — blend of refute and repudiate]

Now, does that mean that “refudiate” has been added to the New Oxford American Dictionary? No it does not. Currently, there are no definite plans to include “refudiate” in the NOAD, the OED, or any of our other dictionaries. If you are interested in the most recent additions to the NOAD, you can read about them here. We have many dictionary programs, and each team of lexicographers carefully tracks the evolution of the English language. If a word becomes common enough (as did last year’s WOTY, unfriend), they will consider adding it to one (or several) of the dictionaries we publish. As for “refudiate,” well, I’m not yet sure that it will be includiated.

Refudiate: A Historical Perspective

An unquestionable buzzword in 2010, the word refudiate instantly evokes the name of Sarah Palin, who tweeted her way into a flurry of media activity when she used the word in certain statements posted on Twitter. Critics pounced on Palin, lampooning what they saw as nonsensical vocabulary and speculating on whether she meant “refute” or “repudiate.”

From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used “refudiate,” we have concluded that neither “refute” nor “repudiate” seems consistently precise, and that “refudiate” more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of “reject.”

Although Palin is likely to be forever branded with the coinage of “refudiate,” she is by no means the first person to speak or write it—just as Warren G. Harding was not the first to use the word normalcy when he ran his 1920 presidential campaign under the slogan “A return to normalcy.” But Harding was a political celebrity, as Palin is now, and his critics spared no ridicule for his supposedly ignorant mangling of the correct word “normality.”

The Short List

In alphabetical order, here are our top ten finalists for the 2010 Word of the Year selection:

bankster noun (informal) a member of the banking industry perceived as a predator that grows rich at the expense of those suffering in a crumbling economy: trillions of dollars are flowing to the banksters in the form of near-zero interest loans.
[origin — 1930s: blend of banker and gangster]

crowdsourcing noun the practice whereby an organization enlists a variety of freelancers, paid or unpaid, to work on a specific task or problem: Kodak used social media crowdsourcing to engage its customers in their naming contest.
[origin — early 21st cent.: on the pattern of outsourcing]

double-dip adjective denoting or relating to a recession during which a period of economic decline is followed by a brief period of growth, followed by a further period of decline: higher food and energy prices could increase the risk of a double-dip recession.

gleek noun (informal) a fan of the television series Glee.
[origin — early 21st cent.: blend of Glee and geek]

nom nom (informal) exclamation an expression of delight when eating.
pl. noun (nom noms) delicious food.
verb (nom-nom) eat delicious food with obvious enjoyment.
adjective (nom-nommy) descriptive of delicious food.
[origin — imitative; popularized by the noises made by the character Cookie Monster on Sesame Street (usually as “Om nom nom nom”)]

retweet verb (on the social networking service Twitter) repost or forward (a message posted by another user): people love to retweet job ads.
noun a reposted or forwarded message on Twitter.

Tea Party a US political party that emerged from a movement of conservatives protesting the federal government in 2009.
[origin — allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773]

top kill noun a procedure designed to seal a leaking oil well, whereby large amounts of a material heavier than the oil—e.g., mud—are pumped into the affected well.

vuvuzela noun (also called vuvu) a long horn blown by fans at soccer matches.
[origin — South African, perhaps from Zulu]

webisode noun 1. an original episode derived from a television series, made for online viewing.
2. an online video that presents an original short film or promotes a product, movie, or television series.
[origin — 1990s: blend of Web and episode]

Thoughts? Leave a comment!

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If you haven’t already heard, unfriend is the New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year. In honor of this announcement, I surveyed Facebook users across the country about why they would choose to unfriend someone.

1. They’ve turned into a robot.
“People send me Green Patches all the time,” said Jane Kim, a television research assistant in NYC. “It’s annoying. And that’s all I ever get from them. Clearly, they’re not interested in actually being friends.”

That’s because your friends are robots, Jane. Marketing robots. These are the friends you never hear from except when they want you to join a cause, sign a petition, donate money, become a fan of a product, or otherwise promote something. Farmville robots are increasingly becoming problems as well, but are not yet grounds for unfriending.

2. You don’t know who they are.
“A few days ago, Facebook suggested I reconnect with a friend whose name I didn’t recognize,” said Jessica Kay, a lawyer in Kansas City. “She’d recently gotten married, but I hadn’t even known she was engaged. I’ll probably unfriend her later. Along with some random people I met at parties in college.”

“You’re tired of seeing [that mystery name] your newsfeed,” said Jonathan Evans, a contract specialist in Seattle. “You haven’t talked to that person since the random class you took together, and you’ll probably never talk to them again.”

3. They broke your heart.
Jonathan Lethem, author of Chronic City, shared that his number one reason to unfriend someone is “because they just broke up with you on Facebook.”

So, maybe they didn’t break your heart. But if the only reason you were friends on Facebook is because you two were somehow involved, it might be time to play some Beyoncé, crack open the Haagen-Dazs and click “Remove from Friends”.

4. You don’t like them anymore.
In the early years of Facebook, users would  friend everyone their dorm, everyone from high school, and every person they had ever shared a sandbox with. But now, many people are finding they no longer like a number of their friends, and spend time creating limited profiles, customizing the newsfeed, and avoiding Facebook chat.

Teresa Hynes, a student at St. John’s University, pointed out that it’s silly to be concerned one of these people might find out you’ve unfriended them and get angry. “You are never going to see them again,” she said. “You don’t want to see them ever again. You hated them in high school. Your mass communications group project is over.”

5. Annoying status updates.
“I don’t want to see ‘So-and-so wishes it was over,’” said Andrew Varhol, a marketing manager in NYC. “Or the cheers of bandwagon sports fans—when suddenly someone’s, ‘Go Yankees! Go Jeter!’ Where were you before October?”

Excessive status updates are one example of Facebook abuse. Amy Labagh of powerHouse Books admits she is irritated by frequent updates. “It’s like they want you to think they’re cool,” she said, “but they’re not.”

A professor at NYU, agreed, and said he finds a number of these frequent updates to be “too bourgie.” “It’ll say something like, ‘So-and-so is drinking whatever in the beautiful scenery of some field.’ I mean, really?!”

The style and type of each update is also important. A number of users agree that song lyrics, poetry, and literary quotations can be extremely annoying. Updates with misspellings or lacking punctuation were also noted. “I once unfriended someone because they updated their statuses in all caps,” said Erin Meehan, a marketing associate in NYC.

6. Obnoxious photo uploads.
Everyone has a different idea about what photos are appropriate to post , but a popular complaint from Facebook users in their 20s concerned wedding and baby photos. “It’s just weird,” said a bartender in Manhattan. “I know that older people are joining now, but if you’re at the stage in your life when most the photos are of your kids, I mean, what are you doing on Facebook?”

“I think makeout photos are worse,” said his coworker. “My sister always posts photos of her and her boyfriend kissing. Sometimes I want to unfriend and unfamily her.”

Across the board, a number of users found partially nude photos, or images of someone flexing their muscles as grounds for unfriending. Another reason, as cited specifically by Margitte Kristjansson, graduate student at UC San Diego, could be if “they upload inappropriate pictures of their stab wounds.”

7. Clashing religious or political views.
“I can’t handle it when someone’s updates are always about Jesus,” said Robert Wilder, a writer in New York.

In the same vein, Phil Lee, lead singer of The Muskies, said he’s extremely irritated by “religious proselytizing and over-enthusiastic praise and Bible quoting. Often in all caps.”

An anonymous Brooklynite shared that he purged his Facebook account after the last Presidential election. “It was a big deal to me,” he said. “I found it hard to be friends with people who didn’t vote for Obama.” After which his friend added, “I voted for McKinney.”

8. “I wanted a free Whopper.”
In January, Burger King launched the Whopper Sacrifice application, which promised each Facebook user a free Whopper if they unfriended 10 people. It sounded simple enough, but if you chose to unfriend someone via the application, it sent a notification to that person, announcing they had been sacrificed for the burger. Burger King disabled the application within the month when the Whopper “proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships.”

Since Facebook has made the home page much more customizable than it used to be, you might wonder, “Why unfriend when I can hide?” More and more, Facebook users are choosing to use limited profiles and editing their newsfeed so undesirable friends disappear from view. “I find lately I’m friending more people, then blocking them,” said Gary Ferrar, a magician in New York. “That way no one gets mad, no one’s feelings get hurt.”

Do you have another reason? Tell us about it!

The post 8 Reasons to Unfriend Someone on Facebook appeared first on OUPblog.

Ammon Shea is a vocabularian, lexicographer, the author of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages and a frequent OUPblog contributor.  In light of our Word of the Year 2009 announcement (WOTY) Ammon has taken a closer look at how WOTY is chosen.  In the post below he reveals the process that led to unfriend being chosen as WOTY 2009.

Every year, at about this time, the New Oxford American Dictionary releases its Word of the Year (WOTY), a combination of solid lexicographic practice and a light-hearted look at the changing face of English today. Since there are quite possibly thousands (or at least dozens) of people out there who wonder “where does the Word of the Year come from?” the following is a brief explanation of what this momentous process entails, and what it does not.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Word of the Year is chosen by a group of unruly lexicographers, drunk on whimsy and an inflated sense of their own power, who are hell-bent on introducing silly words into English. So let’s see what actually happens.

The candidates for WOTY are drawn from three main sources, each of which reflects a particular strength of Oxford University Press and its unrivaled language research program. The first of these is the Oxford English Corpus, a database of over two and a half billion words drawn from current English the world over. The corpus is fully searchable, allowing the editors to find words that have either entered the language or changed meaning significantly enough to warrant attention. The use of the corpus allows tracking of words, and the examination of the shifts that occur in geography, register, and frequency of use.

The second body of candidates to merit consideration for the WOTY is composed of those that have been “catchworded” (catchworded words are those that have been identified as new or unusual usages by one of the vast number of readers who provide citations of word use for the OED and other Oxford Dictionaries). An editor who is responsible for new words in English combines the catchworded items into a digital database, a sort of mini-corpus, in which individual words can be analyzed by frequency, register, and region.

The third source for potential Words of the Year comes from the various editors at OUP, who are continually keeping tabs on the varieties of English and the ways in which these varieties are changing. These words come from the editor’s own reading, or from conversations they’ve had, and from lists of new words that are taken from one of the numerous dictionaries published by OUP.

Once the preliminary list of words has been collected it is sent to a group of perhaps 7 or 8 editors, who commence poking at the words with a sharp stick, weeding out those that aren’t in fact new, or which may new, but not yet widespread enough to be more than a regionalism. The words are all checked to make sure that they do not exist in any current dictionary, and that there is sufficient evidence in the Oxford English Corpus, in various forms of print, and on internet search engines to warrant each one’s inclusion.

This list of words is sent around and winnowed to a short list, which is then itself winnowed to a final list, and from the final list a single word is chosen which has been accorded the honor of being the Word of the Year.

Although the process of picking the WOTY is quite similar to that of introducing a word into a dictionary, this status does not guarantee that the word will be included in any future reference works. The word in question may be quite widespread today and have fallen entirely from use within a few years. The WOTY is not a popularity contest, nor is it simply the word that has been used more than any other over the past year. It is a forward-looking examination of one small aspect of our language, one in which the Oxford lexicographers take a chance on picking the word that they think represents the use of language today, and that will continue to have an influence.

It can be a tricky business, trying to figure out which words will stick ahead of time, and there is no shame in making an educated guess that turns out to not be as accurate several years hence as it seems now. James Murray famously decided to leave the word appendicitis out of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary after receiving advice from William Osler (a famous doctor at Oxford) that it was likely not a word that would ever be in widespread use. A short time later the coronation of Edward VII was delayed after he had to undergo an emergency operation for his appendicitis. Although many people wondered why the word was not in the OED, there was no way that Murray could have made the necessary guess to include it.

The WOTY is an attempt to capture some of the breathtaking fluidity of our language, and to look at its semantic change and inventiveness in real time, through the use of solid research, editorial skill, and intuitive guesswork.

The post Finding the Word of the Year appeared first on OUPblog.

Without further ado, the 2009 Word of the Year is: unfriend.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

Wondering what other new words were considered for the New Oxford American Dictionary 2009 Word of the Year?  Check out the list below.

Technology

hashtag – a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets

intexticated – distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle

netbook – a small, very portable laptop computer with limited memory

paywall – a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers

sexting – the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone

Economy

freemium – a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content

funemployed – taking advantage of one’s newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests

zombie bank – a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support

Politics and Current Affairs

Ardi – (Ardipithecus ramidus) oldest known hominid, discovered in Ethiopia during the 1990s and announced to the public in 2009

birther – a conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama’s birth certificate

choice mom – a person who chooses to be a single mother

death panel – a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed

teabagger -a person, who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as “Tea Party” protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773)

Environment

brown state – a US state that does not have strict environmental regulations

green state – a US state that has strict environmental regulations

ecotown - a town built and run on eco-friendly principles

Novelty Words

deleb – a dead celebrity

tramp stamp – a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman

Notable Word Clusters for 2009:

The post Oxford Word of the Year 2009: Unfriend appeared first on OUPblog.

Do you keep the tires on your car properly inflated to maximize your gas mileage? Have you removed the roof rack from your vehicle to streamline the car and reduce drag? Do you turn your engine off rather than idle at long stoplights? If you said yes to any of these questions you just might be a “hypermiler.”

Some history:
“Hypermiling” was coined in 2004 by Wayne Gerdes, who runs this web site. “Hypermiling” or “to hypermile” is to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques. Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage, exceeding EPA ratings for miles per gallon.

Many of the methods followed by hypermilers are basic common sense—drive the speed limit, avoid hills and stop-and-go traffic, maintain proper tire pressure, don’t let your car idle, get rid of excess cargo—but others practiced by some devotees may seem slightly eccentric:
• driving without shoes (to increase the foot’s sensitivity on the pedals)
• parking so that you don’t have to back up to exit the space
• “ridge-riding” or driving with your tires lined up with the white line at the edge of the road to avoid driving through water-filled ruts in the road when it’s raining

The hypermiling movement has been criticized for its alleged promotion of driving tactics that are considered dangerous or illegal, such as overinflating tires, rolling through stop signs, and following closely behind large vehicles to cut down on wind resistance. The American Automobile Association (AAA) has issued statements condemning hypermiling as unsafe, while hypermilers have countered that AAA’s characterization of hypermiling is a misrepresentation (see links below for more info).

Hypermiling has also gotten some positive attention in 2008, gaining mainstream traction as gas prices soared and the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, especially those from foreign sources, has become more apparent. A new initiative launched by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers and supported by such notables as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advocates the practice, referring to it as EcoDriving.

President-elect Barack Obama observed during his campaign that Americans could save as much oil as would be produced by proposed off-shore drilling if only they kept their tire pressures at recommended levels and took their cars in for regular tune-ups. Republicans’ subsequent criticisms of Obama’s statement put these measures advocated by hypermilers in the center of the debate between conservation and drilling as solutions to Americans’ foreign oil dependence problem.

A growing number of Americans favor hypermiling as a sensible set of practices for all drivers who are concerned about their wallets, the environment, and fuel independence, not just for those on the fringe who are obsessed with increasing their MPG numbers.

Related Links…

AAA on hypermiling

Wayne Gerdes response to AAA

Links relating to “EcoDriving”:
NBC Chicago
Eco Driving USA

Word of the Year Finalists:

frugalista – person who leads a frugal lifestyle, but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying second-hand, growing own produce, etc.

moofer – a mobile out of office worker – ie. someone who works away from a fixed workplace, via Blackberry/laptop/wi-fi etc. (also verbal noun, moofing)

topless meeting – a meeting in which the participants are barred from using their laptops, Blackberries, cellphones, etc.

toxic debt – mainly sub-prime debts that are now proving so disastrous to banks. They were parceled up and sent around the global financial system like toxic waste, hence the allusion.

Word of the Year Shortlist:

CarrotMob, carrot mob – a flashmob type of gathering, in which people are invited via the Net to all support and reward a local small ethical business such as a shop or café by all patronizing it at the same time. Also as noun, carrotmobbing.

ecohacking (also known as geoengineering) – the use of science in very large-scale projects to change the environment for the better/stop global warming (e.g. by using mirrors in space to deflect sunlight away from Earth).

hockey mom – like a soccer mom, but one who is supportive of her ice-hockey playing kids, as popularized by Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin

link bait – content on a website that encourages [baits] a user to place links to it from other websites

luchador – a wrestler, an exponent of lucha libre [Mexican Spanish, lit. = ‘free wrestling’, a form of professional wrestling originating in Mexico and popular in Latin America, with spectacular moves, showy costumes, etc.]

rewilding – the process of returning an area to its original wild state/flora/fauna etc.

staycation – vacation taken at or near one’s home, taking day trips, etc.

tweet – a short message sent via the Twitter service, using a cellphone or other mobile device.

wardrobe – has become a verb, as in: Ms. Mendes has a long-standing relationship with the house of Calvin Klein and has been wardrobed by Calvin Klein Collection.

The post Oxford Word of the Year 2008: Hypermiling appeared first on OUPblog.

Jessica Prentice coined the word “locavore” which was chosen as the Oxford Word of the Year! We asked her how the word came about. Her answer is below.

There’s only one word for it: giddy. That’s how I’ve been feeling since reading the first email informing me that “locavore” was voted 2007’s “Word of the Year” by Oxford University Press. It’s the same feeling you have when you’re twelve years old and the guy you have a crush on gives you a valentine, and doesn’t give one to anyone else. You blush, you jump up and down in your seat, and you send excited text messages to the people you know will understand.

And how exciting to be asked to blog about it and be able to tell the story from my point of view! From the very beginning, the word “locavore” had legs. It’s actually been a fascinating phenomenon to watch: to see something that never existed before take on meaning and gather momentum. It’s also a phenomenon that would have been impossible before the internet. So, how did the word “locavore” come about?

I was one of the many thousands of people nationwide who had become attracted to local foods. At the farmers market, I discovered a relationship to my food that I had been longing for and missing for my entire urbanized existence… Here I bought vegetables and fruit that had been harvested that morning from a field just an hour or two away from where I lived. I got to know the farmers who had grown the food, and got to put my dollar directly into their hands. I bought cheeses made from the milk of cows that I could watch grazing from my car window if I wanted to. I bought eggs from chickens that pecked around for worms amidst grasses the way they’d been doing for thousands of years before factory farming. I bought meat from cattle that had never even seen a feedlot. I bought loaves of bread (sometimes still warm!) from a baker who had loaded the oven that morning.

I was completely hooked, and for years I went out of my way to do my food shopping at the farmers market. My understanding of the ecological and social issues was a process that happened simultaneously. The more I learned about our globalized food system, the more lacking in common sense it seemed. Not only are most people missing out on the age-old pleasures of eating real, fresh foods grown and prepared in the context of community, but as a species we are burning fossil fuels at rapidly increasing rates, and releasing ever more carbon gases into the atmosphere. Factory farms exploit workers and the earth, abuse animals, and contribute to a society in which factory-processed foods have become staples—creating a population that is simultaneously overfed and undernourished. The more I learned, the more committed I became to the idea that strong local food systems are essential for environmental sustainability, food security, social equity, and the economic vitality of thriving communities.

While working as the Director of Education at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco, I met Sage Van Wing. Sage was another of the many people who had gotten turned on to local foods, and our acquaintance was built on our shared passion for local and sustainable food systems. In April of 2005, having left the farmers market to focus on writing my book (Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection), I was on a writing residency in West Marin, and would occasionally walk into the nearby town of Point Reyes to pick up food, do a bit of research, or just take a break. Sage worked at the town’s beloved local bookstore, and I would sometimes browse their titles and chat with her.

It was during one of these chats that Sage told me she had an idea she wanted to run by me… She had just finished reading Gary Paul Nabhan’s book Coming Home to Eat, about his experiment with spending a year eating only foods grown or harvested within a 250-mile radius of where he lives near Phoenix, Arizona. Deeply inspired, Sage thought: wouldn’t it be cool to challenge people in the Bay Area to eat locally for even just a month? It would be an experiment to see what we could and couldn’t find within a certain radius of our homes. The idea struck me immediately as one whose time had come. It was too exciting to pass up and I told her I was in. She wrote a press release and solicited a couple of other friends to get involved. I already had an active website for my work around food, and asked my web designer to create a webpage for our challenge. Sage was calling it “Foodshed for Thought”.

One of the other women on board was local chef Dede Sampson, who had done some work connected to the San Francisco Chronicle food section. Our press release made its way to the desk of one of the food section’s lead writers, Olivia Wu. The Chronicle was doing a whole series of articles focusing on various environmental issues, and our challenge made a perfect focal point for a food section article. Olivia decided to use me as her example of the challenge in action, and brought a photographer along to follow me shopping at the farmers market and then cooking a meal for the three of us in my home kitchen, based entirely on ingredients grown within a hundred-mile radius. Luckily, she liked the meal!
As she was working on the article, however, Olivia felt strongly that our group needed a moniker. Most projects like this come out of a group of people already associated with some entity, such as a business or a non-profit organization—but we were just a group of women who had gotten excited by an idea and were willing to put some time and energy into creating the challenge. As her deadline approached, Olivia gave me a call and insisted that we come up with a name for ourselves. She was apprehensive about using the phrase “Foodshed for Thought”; she wanted something a bit catchier, and something that referenced us and not just the challenge. “Okay,” I told her, “when do you need it by?”

“Five p.m. today,” was her answer!

That gave us only a few hours to come up with something. I called Sage, but couldn’t reach her, so I left her a message saying that I was working on it. I didn’t know where to start, so I wrote down:

• “Local Eaters”

Then, beneath it:

• “Some Women Who Eat Locally”

Clearly, this wasn’t going to be easy…

I have always loved words. The Greek, the Latin, the Germanic, and the Anglo-Saxon influences on modern-day English are both romantic and fascinating to me. So an obvious step was to browse etymology websites in search of roots and affixes drawn from either Latin or Greek that might convey the idea of “local eaters” with a bit of elegance or style. The Greek word for “to eat” is phagein—the root of the word “esophagus”—which I didn’t think would make a very pretty word! The Latin root of local is locus, and the Latin root most associated with eating is vorare, both of which seemed to fit aesthetically as well as semantically. It wasn’t long before I found myself debating the pros and cons of “locavore” and “localvore”—and intuitively preferred the former.

These were my reasons:
1. Flow: the word flows better without the “lv” in the middle. It’s easier to say.
2. Nuance: in my opinion, “localvore” says too much. There is little mystery to it, nothing to discover. It says that this is all about eating locally, end of story. But the word “local” is rooted in locus, meaning “place”, which has a deeper resonance… This movement is about eating not only from your place, but with a sense of place—something we don’t have an English word for. There is a French word, terroir, which implies the sense of place that you get from eating a particular food or drinking a particular wine. Unfortunately, it looks a lot like “terror”, something Americans are touchy about at the moment. I do know one wonderful local farm here in the Bay Area that has made an English play on the French word by using the term “tairwa”, but it hasn’t really caught on.
3. Credibility: “locavore” could almost be a “real” word, combining roots derived from two Latin words: locus, “place”, with vorare, “to swallow”. I like the literal meaning of “locavore”, then: “one who swallows (or devours!) the place”!
4. Levity: because of the Spanish word “loca” embedded in “locavore”, there is a little tongue-in-cheek, playful quality to it. I enjoy both the potential for teasing embedded in “locavore” and the potential for serious discussion—which is crazier, people who try to eat locally, or our current destructive globalized food system?
5. Operatic potential: read the word as if it were Italian, and it rhymes with “that’s amore”!

My father has since pointed out one other advantage locavore has over localvore: the latter could be misread as “lo-cal vore”! It would be really terrible to be misconstrued as promoting a weight-loss diet—especially for someone who loves rich food as much as I do. Plus, it cuts a bit too close to home… With the loss of small-scale integrated farms, it is indeed challenging in many parts of the country to find enough locally grown calories to feed the local population throughout the year.

That evening I was able to reach Sage by phone and run the word by her, and she approved. I left messages with the other women in our group and then sent the word on to Olivia Wu, with the qualification “the best that we can come up with…” She emailed me right back with just two words: “love it!”

Within a week her article was published, and within a few days of that you could google “locavore” and find over a dozen entries. The movement was already alive and kicking, and happy to have a word it could work with. Eat-local challenges began springing up around the country. Once Barbara Kingsolver used it in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle it was just a done deal.

So I’m still giddy. It doesn’t bother me at all that some locavores call themselves localvores—what higher honor for someone encouraging people to eat with a sense of their place than to have local and regional variations on your word?! And just to put icing on the cake, someone has turned my picture into a lolcat-style “lolcavore”. I have to admit I’d never even heard of lolcats before, but now I am just so proud… so very very proud.

And just for the record… I am hardly a purist or a perfectionist. (I was also proud when the New York Times called me a “pragmatic” voice in the movement.) Personally, I don’t use the word as a whip to make myself or anyone else feel guilty for drinking coffee, cooking with coconut milk, or indulging in a piece of chocolate. There are things it makes sense to import because we can’t grow them here, and they’re either good for us or really delicious or both. But it doesn’t make sense to watch local apple orchards go out of business while our stores are filled with imported mealy apples. And if you spend a few weeks each year without the pleasures of imported delicacies, you really do learn a whole lot about your foodshed, about your place, about what you’re swallowing on a daily basis.

Thanksgiving is upon us—what better opportunity to “swallow the place” instead of just swallowing a factory-farmed turkey? Why not gather with loved ones and give thanks for the gifts of your little location on our planet? Once upon a time, all human beings were locavores, and everything we ate was a gift of the Earth. To have something to devour is a blessing—let’s not forget it.

The post The Birth of Locavore appeared first on OUPblog.

One sign that locavore isn’t quite settled in the English lexicon is that there are still arguments about how to spell it. Locavore is the original form, as coined by Jessica Prentice, one of four San Francisco women who challenged Bay Area residents in 2005 to eat only food grown within a 100-mile radius. As similar regional initiatives popped up in other parts of the country, some groups (especially in New England) chose to spell the term localvore with an extra l in the middle. The localvore spelling might be seen as avoiding unwanted associations with the Spanish word for “crazy” (masc. loco, fem. loca), as well as foregrounding the “localness” of local eating. But as I learned this week, Ms. Prentice had her own reasons for choosing locavore over localvore (which you can read about here). Which word will ultimately win out, locavore or localvore? Perhaps the “local eating” movement is big enough to accommodate both variants. Or who knows, maybe a dark horse will emerge for those dissatisfied with the two choices. Locatarian, anyone? How about proxivore?

Lexicographers, you see, do not possess a crystal ball that can predict which words will ultimately flourish in the linguistic ecosystem. All they can reasonably do is try to pinpoint which words have potential and observe how they spread (or fail to). A look at the runner-up list for Word of the Year reveals an array of such promising candidates. (And if you want to see even more, check out the words that didn’t quite make the cut on Dictionary Evangelist, the blogging home of Erin McKean, OUP’s chief consulting editor for American dictionaries.)

Some of the runners-up have institutional support of one sort or another that might help them in the long run: the Pentagon continues to order MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) to protect troops in Iraq, while scientists publish papers on the colony collapse disorder mysteriously afflicting honeybees. Some are boosted by zealous subcultures: the digerati are partial to bacn (“email you want, but not right now”), while indie film buffs approvingly mumble about mumblecore (the latest genre of low-budget, improvisational, youth-driven movies). And some words might have already had their moment in the pop-cultural sun. Will we remember the verb tase, a back-formation from Taser, now that videos of the “Don’t tase me, bro” incident have fallen out of constant circulation?

At OUP, we’ll keep tracking the development of these words, using the Oxford English Corpus and other tools at our disposal. And if their usage justifies it, the new words will get included in future editions of NOAD and other Oxford dictionaries. For now, though, we’ll just sit back and savor a year of wondrous words.

The post “Word of the Year” Mania! appeared first on OUPblog.

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.

“The word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. “It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.”

“Locavore” was coined two years ago by a group of four women in San Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Other regional movements have emerged since then, though some groups refer to themselves as “localvores” rather than “locavores.” However it’s spelled, it’s a word to watch.

Runners-up for the 2007 Word of the Year include:

aging in place: the process of growing older while living in one’s own residence, instead of having to move to a new home or community

bacn: email notifications, such as news alerts and social networking updates, that are considered more desirable than unwanted “spam” (coined at PodCamp Pittsburgh in Aug. 2007 and popularized in the blogging community)

cloudware: online applications, such as webmail, powered by massive data storage facilities, also called “cloud servers”

colony collapse disorder: a still-unexplained phenomenon resulting in the widespread disappearance of honeybees from beehives, first observed in late 2006

cougar: an older woman who romantically pursues younger men

MRAP vehicle: Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, designed to protect troops from improvised explosive devices (IEDs)

mumblecore: an independent film movement featuring low-budget production, non-professional actors, and largely improvised dialogue

previvor: a person who has not been diagnosed with a form of cancer but has survived a genetic predisposition for cancer

social graph: the network of one’s friends and connections on social websites such as Facebook and Myspace

tase (or taze): to stun with a Taser (popularized by a Sep. 2007 incident in which a University of Florida student was filmed being stunned by a Taser at a public forum)

upcycling: the transformation of waste materials into something more useful or valuable

The post Oxford Word Of The Year: Locavore appeared first on OUPblog.

The New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2006 is (drum roll please) Carbon Neutral.

Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in “green” technologies such as solar and wind power.

The rise of carbon neutral reflects the growing importance of the green movement in the United States. In a CBS News/New York Times Poll in May 2006, 66% of respondents agreed that global warming is a problem that’s causing a serious impact now. 2006 also saw the launch of a new (and naturally, carbon neutral) magazine about eco-living, Plenty; the actor Leonardo DiCaprio is planning a environmentally-themed reality TV series about an eco-village; and colleges from Maine to Wisconsin are pledging to be carbon neutral within five years. It’s more than a trend, it’s a movement.

Erin McKean, editor in chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary 2e, said “The increasing use of the word carbon neutral reflects not just the greening of our culture, but the greening of our language. When you see first graders trying to make their classrooms carbon neutral, you know the word has become mainstream.”

“All the Oxford lexicographers look forward to choosing the Word of the Year. We know that people love fun, flashy words like truthiness or the latest Bushism, but we are always looking for a word that is both reflective of the events and concerns of the past year and also forward-looking: a word that we think will only become more used and more useful as time goes on.”

If making the world a better place isn’t enough of a reason for you to become carbon neutral, consider doing it because the cool kids are. Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch, and the Rolling Stones are all advocates of being carbon neutral.

Runners-up for the 2006 Word of the Year include:

CSA (community-supported agriculture: a system of food distribution where individual consumers purchase a season’s worth of regularly delivered allotments of the vegetables, fruit, dairy, or other agricultural products grown on a small, usually family-owned farm or orchard.)

DRM (digital rights management: hardware or software that controls access and use of digital data, access and uses that may be disapproved of by rights owners, but that are not necessarily illegal.)

dwarf planet (a new designation for planetlike objects [such as Pluto] that are round and orbit the sun, but have not cleared other objects from their orbits. The word pluton was also proposed as a term for planetlike objects beyond Neptune, with Pluto as their prototype.)

elbow bump (a greeting in which two people touch elbows, recommended by the World Health Organization as an alternative to the handshake in order to reduce the spread of germs.)

fishapod (a humorous name for a newly discovered fossil [Tiktaalik roseae] that has features of both fish and land mammals and as such is considered an evolutionary link between the two.)

funner (an informal/nonstandard comparative of fun.)

ghostriding (the practice of exiting a moving vehicle and dancing either beside it, or on the hood or roof, while the vehicle is in motion.)

Islamofascism (a controversial term equating some modern Islamic movements with the European fascist movements of the early twentieth century.)

pregaming (the practice of consuming alcoholic beverages before attending a sporting event or party, especially one where alcohol may be limited or banned.)

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If you don’t have a clue how to use bovvered in a sentence, never fear because we are here to help you sound hip (even if the word podcast means nothing to you.) Repeat after us, “Am I bovvered?” or “Does my face look bovvered?”

Go on say it again, you look cooler already.

Okay, enough.

If you want to read more check out Ask Oxford, which lists WOTYs all the way back to 1906, when muckraking was all the rage.

The post Bovvered: Word of the Year appeared first on OUPblog.

You have probably heard by now (it’s one of the most-linked to items online) that the Oxford American Dictionary has selected “podcast” as the word of the year, or, as we refer to it in the lexicogging biz, the WOTY (pronounced “whoa-tee”, that is, it would be pronounced that way if anyone ever did pronounce it, instead of just sending it in emails).

The runners-up were also announced, and included:

bird flu (an often fatal flu virus of birds, esp poultry, that is transmissible from them to humans, in whom it may also prove fatal.)
ICE (an entry stored in one’s cellular phone that provides emergency contact information.)
IDP (internally displaced person; someone forced to relocate within a country because of a natural disaster or civil unrest.)
IED (improvised explosive device, such as a car bomb).
lifehack (a more efficient or effective way of completing an everyday task: I found a great lifehack for getting a cheap hotel room.)
persistent vegetative state (a condition in which a patient recovering from a coma retains reflex responses and may appear wakeful, but has no cognitive functions or other evidence of cerebral cortical activity.)
reggaeton (a Latin American dance music which combines elements of reggae music with hip-hop and rap.)
rootkit (software installed on a computer by someone other than the owner, intended to conceal other programs or processes, files or system data.)
squick (cause immediate and thorough revulsion: was anyone else squicked by our waiter’s piercings?)
sudoku (a logic-based puzzle consisting of squares that form grids within a grid. Into each smaller grid, the numerals 1 through 9 are entered but not repeated, and they may not be repeated in any row or column of the larger grid.)
trans fat (fat containing trans-fatty acids, considered unhealthier than other dietary fats.)

There were also a number of third-tier words (Miss Congenialities?) and a couple of those were really hard to leave off the list. Two in particular really stood out: Aspie (or aspie) and machinima. Aspie is a short form of “Asperger’s syndrome,” and is used by people with the syndrome to refer to themselves. It’s a very interesting word, because it is used almost in the same way as Deaf with a capital D, which is used to refer to people who are not just unable to hear but who fully participate in Deaf culture: they belong to Deaf groups, use American Sign Language, etc. Machinima is a term for movies that are made with software not intended for filmmaking: usually videogame software. By carefully orchestrating and recording the play of certain videogames, machinima enthusiasts can use the highly realistic graphics engines of the games to produce very sophisticated animated films.

Do you have further suggestions for OUP’s American Dictionaries? Want to start lobbying for the 2006 WOTY? Send your candidates, questions, and citations to dictionaries@oup.com.

Update: For more on the possible – and truely tasteless – etymology of “squick,” go to gawker.com.

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