February 2006

January TOP TWENTY

Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Year, announced back in December continued to attract interest, as six of the Top Twenty spots went to Words of the Year. Of those, filibuster came in highest at No. 2, surely aided by ongoing discussion about the Alito nomination.

See January’s full list and find out what perennial member of the list is finally a no-show.

1. effect
2. filibuster
3. ubiquitous
4. affect
5. integrity
6. insipid
7. metaphor
8. love
9. pandemic
10. irony		   11. ensure
12. dichotomy
13. ambiguous
14. empathy
15. egregious
16. inept
17. hypothesis
18. partisan
19. contempt
20. pragmatic

Other Words of the Year on the list included integrity at No. 5, insipid at No. 6 (Simon Cowell’s bon mot lives on), pandemic at No. 9., inept at No. 16, and contempt at No. 19 (an oddly tenacious word, as reports about the case that sparked the contempt charges seem to have disappeared).

Discussions about the Alito nomination were probably also responsible for partisan at No. 18.

Some frequent entrants on the list reappeared this month, namely ensure, egregious, hypothesis, and pragmatic. Not surprisingly, Hanukkah and agnostic slipped off, as interest cooled in the debate over how to refer to the holidays.

And for the first time since it was named Word of the Year in 2004, blog is not among the Top Twenty. Don’t count it out however. As long as bloggers blog, we predict its return to the list.


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