Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

It is a little tiresome sometimes—and I say that as one of the people involved in the American Dialect Society's word of the year vote. It's mostly tiresome because the WOTY stories keep popping up in my reading. It's locavore, locavore, locavore everywhere.

In past years, I had to come up with four separate words-of-the-year nomination lists when I worked for Oxford University Press: one for its US Dictionaries department, one for its slang program, one for my annual words-of-the-year list in the New York Times, one for the American Dialect Society. I couldn't just re-use the content because everyone likes exclusivity on these things.

We will mention all the words-of-the-year announcements in a future show. Also, keep an eye out for my fourth annual list in the Times. There will be about 37 terms on it. The full candidate list is about 67 terms. That will come out at some point, too, as nominations to the ADS WOTY vote.