It’s that time again, when people start thinking about a new or resurgent word or phrase that best captures the spirit of the past year. And what a year! We heard the words bailout and lipstick more times than we’d ever dreamed, and saw also the rise of invented words like staycation and recessionista. What are your nominations for 2008’s Word of the Year? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Nominations for 2008 Word of the Year”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Well, it’s that time of year again.
Grant, how many shopping days is it until the American Dialect Society announces its new Word of the Year?
Well, I don’t know the number of days, but we’ll vote on it January 9th in San Francisco
As part of the annual American Dialect Society and Linguistic Society of America conference.
Oh, I thought you’d be counting the days.
No, no.
I’m making the list, though, and checking them twice.
I’ve got a lot of words, word candidates for word of the year nominations.
Right.
So what words are you pulling for?
Well, you’ve probably heard this one, staycation.
Oh, yeah.
That’s one of my favorites.
This is because of the expensive price of gasoline this summer.
Supposedly, people were staying at home when they were taking their vacations from work
Instead of traveling to the beach or Disney World or wherever.
So they called that a staycation.
I think that’s a strong contender.
I think that’s my legs.
I do, too.
There are others.
One that I like and I commented on in the press is the word recessionista.
Did you know this one?
Recessionista.
I saw a headline about it.
What does it mean?
This has a couple of meanings.
One of them is somebody who is kind of a bear in a financial sense and believes that we’re headed for a recession.
And then another one is a style-conscious person who now shops carefully for clothes and accessories and fashion items so that they can look fashionable but spend less.
That is, they’re watching their money.
They’re a fashionista who is paying attention to the fact that we might be in a recession.
Therefore, they are a recessionista.
What do you think about that one?
Don’t know.
I’ll nominate them and let other people vote.
How about that?
Sounds good.
Well, we’ll be eagerly awaiting the results.
So what’s your candidate for Word of the Year for 2008?
Let us know.
Call us at 1-877-929-9673.
That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.
Or you can send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
