2005 Word of the Year awarded

Word discoveries: 2005 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society*
*Available to download; requires use of Acrobat Adobe Reader
Citation: highlighted on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.
Usage: According to the American Dialect Society’s website, “The words or phrases do not have to be brand new, but they have to be newly prominent or notable in the past year.”
Other 2005 word-nominees include: Katrina (Hurricane Katrina-related words), podcast, intelligent design, and patent troll.
Other 2005 word-winner categories: most useful, most creative, most unnecessary, most outrageous, most euphemistic, best Tom-Cruise-related word, most likely to succeed, and least likely to succeed.
Comments: It’s always useful to see what new words have been created and used in the past year, as well as what existing words have taken on a new life. Both say a lot about our society and culture through vivid use of language.