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August/September 2005July's TOP TWENTYJuly’s peloton of words whizzes by, and up at the front of the pack is … peloton. Just as it did last summer, the Tour de France leads to a tour du dictionnaire, or at least a tour of the entry for peloton. Follow the rankings to see who dropped back and who moved up—and hear a few more thoughts about inept.
July’s list includes most of the familiar favorites, but there has been some jockeying for position. Dropping out of the Top Twenty are, among others, metaphor and irony—a sure sign that fewer college English papers were written in July. Moving up were conundrum, serendipity, and epiphany, words perhaps better suited for summer musing. And inept, May’s surprise No. 8 word, slipped back to No. 23. In June’s issue, we invited readers to submit their explanations for the sudden surge in interest for inept. Your ideas matched ours: that the lookups were inspired by ongoing discussions about politics, journalistic fumbling, and a bunch of bad movies. The politics angle gets some support from the fact that the upswing in popularity for inept begins the same day as President Bush’s first televised prime-time news conference of his second term—certainly an occasion to get people talking about politics. That was also the news conference in which three of the networks cut away early so that their prime-time programs (including NBC’s The Apprentice) could begin on schedule, so there was plenty of ineptitude to talk about. |