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Separately, the American Dialect Society bestowed its Word of
the Year honors on the increasingly common practice of
introducing oneself in correspondence or socially by the set of
pronouns one prefers to be called by - declaring in an email,
for example, "pronouns: she/her."
The two awards were decided by some 350 member of the society at
its annual meeting of academics, graduate students and word
lovers who voted by a show of hands, said Ben Zimmer, a linguist
and lexicographer who chairs the group's New Words Committee.
The most popular pick for Word of the Year was "(my) pronouns,"
a reflection of "how the personal expression of gender identity
has become an increasing part of our shared discourse," the
society said in a statement announcing the outcome.
The same trend was behind the selection of "they" as the Word of
the Decade, recognizing its growing use to refer to a person
whose gender identity is non-binary. The singular use of "they"
was previously designated as the 2015 Word of the Year.
"People want to choose something that stands the test of time
and sums up the decade as a whole," said Zimmer, who writes a
language column for the Wall Street Journal.
Social media has turbo-charged the way words or phrases become
popular, leading to some recent multi-word champions for Word of
the Year, including "tender-age shelter" (a detention facility
for young undocumented migrant children separated from their
parents) in 2018 and "fake news" in 2017.
Other decade nominees considered on Friday included:
- "#BlackLivesMatter," the hashtag used to protest alleged
disparities in police use of force against African Americans.
- "Climate," reflecting increased interest in the impact of
climate change.
- "#MeToo," the movement that has highlighted widespread
patterns of sexual abuse and harassment that women have faced at
the hands of men across many spheres of life, including
business, politics and entertainment.
The society, founded in 1889 and dedicated to the study of the
English language in North America, started selecting its "Word
of the Year" in 1991 and since then has picked only two other
"Word of the Decade" winners. Top choices were "web" for the
1990s and "Google" as a verb for the 2000s.
Other "Word of the Year" nominations for 2019 included:
- "OK Boomer," described as a retort to someone older, typically
a member of the Baby Boom generation, who expresses views that
are out-of-touch or condescending to young people and their
concerns.
- "Cancel," meaning to withdraw support from someone or
something that is considered problematic or unacceptable, used
in the phrase "cancel culture."
- "Karen," the stereotype of a complaining, self-important,
demanding white woman, typically a member of Generation X or
"Generation Karen."
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by David
Gregorio, Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler)
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