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October 2005September's TOP TWENTYIn the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the controversies that followed, refugee topped the list of most-frequently looked-up words by a wide margin. In fact, refugee had more look-ups than any other word has ever received in a one-month period. For more on refugee, see this month’s Word Profile. The full list also includes levee and hurricane, as well as clear evidence that school is back in session. The full list of the most frequently looked-up words on the Merriam-Webster Online Web site for the month is as follows: 1. refugee Concerns about the appropriate word to use for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina began prompting look-ups for refugee as early as the day after the storm made landfall and persisted throughout the month. It wasn’t until Rita came ashore on the morning of the 24th that refugee was not among each day’s most looked-up words. The most frequently cited alternative to refugee was evacuee, and look-ups for evacuee were heavy during the first week of September, but the word was not frequently looked up after then, and it ended up far down the list for the month as a whole. Levee was another frequently looked up, edging out every other word except effect and affect. Levee also had the dubious distinction of being a word that many users had trouble spelling, with levy being the most common misspelling. Since the two words share the same French root (lever, “to rise”) the confusion is understandable. The return to the list of metaphor, irony, and culture signals that school is indeed back in session. Slipping off the list were our summer visitors conundrum and serendipity, and slipping down the list was blog, now at No. 14, its lowest point since being declared Word of the Year late last year. |