Words of the Year

[vaneramos]

Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year for 2004 (based on online lookups):

1. blog


2. incumbent


3. electoral


4. insurgent


5. hurricane


6. cicada


7. peloton


8. partisan


9. sovereignty


10. defenestration

Comments

[jwg.livejournal.com]

How did defenestration get on that list? What was the context, I wonder?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Good question.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

My immediate association with the word (well, John, you know how my mind works) is always the Defenestration of Prague, one of the triggering events of the Thirty Years War¹. I can't, however, think of any reason why the Thirty Years War would have had more than the usual amount of attention this year.

¹My memory of what the Defenestration of Prague actually was is a little hazy. I think the representatives of one of the Elector-princes were thrown out of a second-story window in Prague, for a reason that completely escapes me; and if I remember correctly, they actually landed on a dunghill and escaped unharmed.

[artricia.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right. That's when most people seem to learn this word. Either that, or when they remark on the word, someone brings sup the story.

[progbear.livejournal.com]

"Peloton"? How out of touch am I?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Not to worry, I had never heard it either. It's to do with bicycle racing.

Peloton!

[ranjtheobscure.livejournal.com]

Whoo Hoo!

And I think a lot of people
got pretty excited by the TdF
this year.

Nice to know people were actually looking up the word insurgent.
Now let's try for Electoral Nullification, or Impeachment see if maybe we can put them on next year's list.


Be well,
Ranj

Re: Peloton!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Peloton is cool, and a new word for me. It evokes images of scenes from Amélie.

My reference of choice is the Oxford Canadian Dictionary. Unfortunately it isn't available as an online resource. I wonder what its words of the year would be.

[artricia.livejournal.com]

Defenestrate is one of my favorite words!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Cool, it's relatively unfamiliar to me. How do you like to use it?

[artricia.livejournal.com]

However I can.

I used it in my dissertation -- something about neorealists not completely defenestrating theory.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Is it, perhaps, a little disturbing that large numbers of people had to look up "incumbent", "electoral", and "hurricane"?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I don't know; as a writer, I look up words I know all the time for clarification, or to check spelling, usage and derivation.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Fair point. And those words did get a lot of use this year.