01.12.09
Bailstorming
When the American Dialect Society (ADS) announced bailout as the organization’s Word of the Year (WOTY) 2008 last Friday, did a conference-roomful of corporate execs race up to the stage to accept the honor the way teams of producers sometimes scramble en masse to the presenter at the Oscars or the Tonys? Or were they tired from doing so when they accepted bailout’s word-of-the-year nod from Merriam-Webster?
It’s a pretty lackluster word of the year, this bailout. And even the American Dialect Society recognizes it. When announcing the results of ADS voting, Grant Barrett, chair of the ADS New Words Committee and co-host of public radio’s A Way with Words, said: “You’d think a room full of pointy-headed intellectuals could come up with something more exciting.”
Though it’s not a glitzy word, it was indeed important in its use, and in the frequency of its use, in 2008. And bailout beat out a number of interesting nominees (phrases are considered, as well). Some that particularly caught my eye (and the definition listed in the recent ADS WOTY press release):
- recombobulation area: An area at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee in which passengers that have just passed through security screening can get their clothes and belongings back in order.
- long photo: A video of 90 seconds or less. Used by the photo-sharing web site Flickr.
- thought showers: Coined by a British city council because the synonym “brainstorming” was said to be offensive to epileptics.
Just who thought-showered that latter gem?
Recombobulation area took first place in the ADS “Most Creative” category. Other category winners (again, with notes from the ADS release, and snarks in parentheses from yours truly):
- Most Useful Barack Obama: Both names as combining forms. (Barack Obama has found that phrase useful for many years now.)
- Most Unnecessary: moofing: From “mobile out of office,” meaning working on the go with a laptop and cell phone. Created by a PR firm. (In fact, most such acronums are proving themselves increasingly unnecessary and unused, waning from the heyday of yuppie and nimby. More on that tomorrow.)
- Most Outrageous: terrorist fist jab: A knuckle-to-knuckle fist bump, or “dap,” traditionally performed between two black people as a sign of friendship, celebration or agreement. It was called the “terrorist fist jab” by the newscaster E. D. Hill, formerly of Fox News.
- Most Euphemistic: scooping technician: A person whose job it is to pick up dog poop. (Seems a pretty lame selection after we’ve endured sanitation engineer for garbageman lo these many decades.)
- Most Likely to Succeed: shovel-ready: Used to describe infrastructure projects that can be started quickly when funds become available. (I disagree. You won’t hear it used more than three times in 2010, if that. Speaking of shovels, the phrase will be grave-ready once projects are underway.)
- Least Likely to Succeed: PUMA: An acronym for Party Unity My Ass, used by Democrats who were disaffected after Hillary Clinton failed to secure a sufficient number of delegates. It was later said to stand for Party Unity Means Action. (And soon to stand for Pretty Ugly Manipulative Acronym.)
- New Category: Election-related Words: maverick: A person who is beholden to no one. Widely used by the Republican Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates, John McCain and Sarah Palin. Also in the adjectival form mavericky, used by Tina Fey portraying Palin on Saturday Night Live. (I put it in a different “new category”: Most Abused Word, and select it as the winner.)
Overall, I stick with my previous choice for 2008 word of the year: susurration, because nobody used it this year past year, and they should have. It’s a beautiful word, one to be spoken quietly in the middle of thought showers.
, 
and 
. Feel free to 
