September 2007

Summer TOP TWENTY

Word.com resumes publication this month after its usual summer hiatus, and we are confronted with a new word as the most frequently looked-up word on Merriam-Webster Online over the summer months — awkward. And no, we don't know why people are looking it up. But here is the rest of the list and some observations on other newcomers.

  1. awkward
  2. google
  3. eclectic
  4. pretentious
  5. effect
  6. quixotic
  7. conundrum
  8. integrity
  9. affect
  10. hypocrite
 
  1. debauchery
  2. albeit
  3. ambiguous
  4. imminent
  5. egregious
  6. colleague
  7. love
  8. melancholy
  9. superfluous
  10. whether

Back in the spring, awkward and pretentious (No. 4) were working their way up the list, and we said in June that we didn't know why, and we still don't. Do you have a theory? If so, we'd love to hear it. E-mail us at comments@word.com. Two others making big jumps up the list are eclectic (No. 3) and colleague (No. 16), and we are puzzled by these two as well.

There are a number of possible explanations for the increase in look-ups for quixotic (No. 6), especially in a political season marked by so many long shots in the race. And whatever the explanation, there are so many fascinating aspects of quixotic, including its history and its pronunciation, that it seems a natural for this list. We tell some of the story of quixotic in this month's Word History of the Month.

Imminent (No. 11), melancholy (No, 18), and superfluous (No. 18) round out the list of words coming onto the list, but they are really returnees, as they have been on the list before.

Among the words slipping off the list are metaphor and ubiquitous, but we feel sure that metaphor (and irony) will be back once school starts up again. And ubiquitous has been such a stalwart of the list that we feel confident predicting its return as well.

But about that awkward?


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