October 2009

September Top Twenty

An outburst during a presidential address in September caused much comment – and brought the word admonish to national prominence as the official term used in Congress for expressing displeasure at the behavior of a member. The term became the single most looked-up word for the month.

  1. admonish
  2. ubiquitous
  3. integrity
  4. affect
  5. cynical
  6. pretentious
  7. socialism
  8. effect
  9. thorough
  10. democracy
 
  1. aloof
  2. tenacious
  3. whether
  4. facetious
  5. conundrum
  6. through
  7. rhetoric
  8. culture
  9. albeit
  10. eclectic

Rep. Joe Wilson's exclamation also brought rebuke into the top 100 words for the month. Socialism is a word that has been used in discussions about health insurance reform, causing many to look up the specific definition. Others high on this month's list are old friends – vocabulary words that are perennials at or near the top of the list: integrity, ubiquitous, conundrum, and of course affect and effect (see also Words in the News).

Then there's the story of macropterous. The word mysteriously shot to the top of the list for a couple days, but hadn't been used in any news story. In fact, the word hadn't been looked up at all for some time. Turns out that it was mentioned in a blog about a Web comic called Penny Arcade that concerns an intersection of comics and video game culture – and it happens to be one of the most popular online comics. Curious online fans generated enormous traffic for this word.


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