Each year the American Dialect Society gathers to nominate the words that best characterized the previous 12 months. This year, we’ll gather in Minneapolis. The open nominating meeting for Words of the Year 2013 is at 6:15 p.m. Thursday, January 2, and the final vote at 5:30 p.m. Friday, January 3. Members, friends, and the press are invited to participate at both meetings.
If you’d like to make your own nominations, email woty@americandialect.org. Remember, they should be:
- new or newly popular in 2013
- widely or prominently used in 2013
- indicative or reflective of the popular discourse.
Several members of the American Dialect Society have released their nomination lists:
- Ben Zimmer, chair of the New Words Committee and editor of the “Among the New Words” column in the American Dialect Society’s journal American Speech, published his word-of-the-year candidates in the Wall Street Journal and provided an expanded list of words in his Word Routes column on Vocabulary.com.
- Grant Barrett, former chair of the New Words Committee and former editor of the “Among the New Words” column in American Speech, posted his words on the website of his public radio show A Way with Words. An abbreviated version of the list was also published in the New York Times.
- Dennis Baron gives his word of the year as “marriage,” and discusses the other words he considered, on this blog.
- Name developer Nancy Friedman published a long, thoughtful words-of-the-year list on her language and naming blog.
- Lexicographer David Barnhart’s list is here.