September TOP TWENTY

As predicted last month, once school was back in session, metaphor returned to the list and, in fact, took over the top spot, edging out the usual leaders, effect and google. In a similar vein, hypothesis and paradigm rejoined the list, while awkward slipped a few spots. The rest of the list features a few other returnees and some notable departures.

Happy Birthday: 1990

After decades of division following WWII, the two countries once known as East Germany and West Germany were formally joined together on October 3, 1990. Combining two items in order to produce a third isn't limited to the business of creating countries; of the 24 terms dating their birth year to 1990, five words are the result of a similar process.

Interested in words from a particular year? It's easy to categorize them. Select the Collegiate as your reference, click on Advanced Search, type the year into the Date field, and click on Search.

Word History of the Month: junta

The pro-democracy uprising by Buddhist monks in Myanmar (the country formerly known as Burma) against that country's ruling military junta helped boost junta onto the list of "most-looked-up words" for a few days near the end of last month. Junta has a variety of pronunciations and a straightforward history.

New Word Watch

Merriam-Webster editors are giving the following words serious consideration for entry in a Merriam-Webster dictionary:

*  game face noun : a look of intense determination in the face of a game player

*  malware noun [malicious + -ware (as in software)] : software designed to interfere with a computer's normal functioning

*  mondegreen noun : [from the mishearing in a Scottish ballad of "laid him on the green" as "Lady Mondegreen"] : a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung <"very close veins" is a mondegreen of "varicose veins">

Do you have a suggestion for a word we should be watching for? E-mail us at comments@word.com, and we'll tell you what we have on that word so far.

Notable and Quotable: Dwight D. Eisenhower

The third of seven sons, Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Texas on October 14, 1890. He grew up to attend West Point, rise to a five-star Army General, be named first Supreme Commander of NATO, and serve two terms as U.S. President. Eisenhower is also quoted at 54 places in the Unabridged Dictionary . . . and many of those citations concern war and peace.

Interested in finding examples from a favorite author in the dictionary? Select either the Unabridged or the Collegiate as a reference source, and click on Advanced Search. Type the last name of the author in the Author field, and click Search.

From the Mail Server

Autumn means back-to-school and it means the World Series. This month, our editors answered questions about a newish term that walked in off the baseball diamond and about a somewhat questionable term used by a French speaker in a history class taught in English. They also participated in the sport of trying to parse the application of a term naming an instrument for acquiring knowledge that was borrowed into English from Greek.

Beyond the Dictionary

News reports on Iraq's benchmarks for democracy and on Myanmar's military efforts to crush their nation's pro-democracy movement have meant that the word democracy has been getting a significant number of look-ups — it earned the number 16 spot last month.

The concept of representative democracy arose less from ancient Greek practice than from ideas and institutions that developed in medieval Europe, during the Enlightenment, and in the American and French Revolutions. The dictionary tells us "people" put the "dem-" in "democracy" but the Encyclopedia tells us much more.

In Case You Were Wondering

Trick or treat is almost upon us, and we're afraid we have some scary news: despite suggestions that phasmophobia or spectrophobia fit the bill, the English language has no established word naming the fear of ghosts.

Language Links

October 23 is United Nations Day, honoring the day in 1945 that the UN Charter took effect. The UN is to be lauded for drawing the attention of the world to the plight of languishing languages in danger of extinction; a number of Web sites continue the work.