TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Word of the Year winners From:Jay Cherniak <CHERNJC1_at_TEAPOST -at- TEOMAIL -dot- JHUAPL -dot- EDU> Date:Tue, 7 Mar 1995 16:07:40 EST
The latest issue of Copy Editor: The National Newsletter for Professional
Copy Editors, has a column giving the winners of the annual Word of the Year
contest.
This contest is conducted by the American Dialect Society, a scholarly
organization. Voting was done by its members.
The winners are as follows. At the end of this message is information on how
to subscribe to Copy Editor and how to get on the list of the American Dialect
Society. Please don't respond to me about this.
The Winners are:
Most Imaginative
guillermo (e-mail message in a foreign language [= memo in Spanish]).
One of the losers in this category is spamming (random and indiscriminate
posting of articles and advertising on Internet bulletin boards [from image of
Spam dropped into an electric fan]).
Most trendy
dress-down day (a workday, like Friday, when you are allowed to wear
casual clothes). One of the losers was vegetal leather (synthetic leather made
of latex on cotton).
Most useful
Gingrich, a verb. Losers in this category were netiquette and cyber.
Most euphemistic
challenged. A loser was fetal reduction (aborting one or more fetuses in
a multiply pregnancy to increase the chance of survival of the remaining ones).
Most promising
infobahn. Losers were Pog and polydoxy (holding a variety of beliefs).
Most beautiful
sylvanshine. A loser was granny mum (a woman past normal childbearing
age who became pregnant through implantation of a fertilized egg).
The Word of the Year is a tie between the prefix cyber- and the verb morph.
Last year's winner was information superhighway.
You can subscribe to the American Dialect Society mailing list by sending a
message to listserv -at- uga -dot- cc -dot- uga -dot- edu, with the body of the message containing only
sub ads-L.
Here is the subscription information on Copy Editor (no, I don't get a
commission):
Copy Editor, P.O. Box 604, Ansonia Station, New York,
NY 10023-0604. Phone: 212-757-2645. ISSN 1049-3190.
Subscriptions: one year, $69; two years, $118. Canadians, add $5 per year.
(I think they send a sample issue if you ask. I say that because we have in
our possession an issue that has Sample printed on the top instead of a date. I
don't know why else they would produce such an issue.)
