Published January 8, 2006 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
By Aaron J. Brown
Transition from one year to the next inspires reflection. What were the top news stories of 2005? How about the top sports highlights? Books? Movies? Quickly suppressed military coups? My annual favorite remains the lists of top words.
This year, I call your attention to a handful of sources. The first is the Global Language Monitor, a nonprofit group that follows language use. According to GLM, the top word for 2005 was “refugee,” due in part to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the Asian tsunami, the Pakistani earthquake and other large disasters.
Know how you can tell a bad year? When its top word is “refugee.” Why can’t we have a year where the top word is “candy?” That’s a damn fine year. We can only hope that next year’s top word isn’t “woe.” (Unless it’s that really fun Joey Lawrence “Woah!”)
The Oxford University Press named a separate batch of top words as well, their favorite being “podcast.” If you’re not familiar with podcasting, chances are you also fear robots and once voted for Tom Dewey. Well, maybe not, but podcasting is really hot among the hipster set.
Let’s start from the beginning. You’re heard the word iPod, right? Well, these iPods play songs downloaded from the Internet. Then people decided they could make whole radio shows for people to download onto their iPods. It’s a growing trend, and now there are “podcasts” for music, NASCAR, politics and just about everything else. Let me use it in dialogue:
MOM: Billy’s in his room podcasting again.
DAD: That kid’s going to go blind.
MOM: Frank, it’s just what kids do.
Moving on, other Oxford Press top words include IED (improvised explosive device), bird flu and “persistent vegetative state,” all further indicators of the kind of year 2005 was.
The Historical Dictionary of American Slang released their top slang terms for 2005. Leading the way is the phrase, “Jumping the couch,” in honor of Tom Cruise’s love-induced crazyfest on Oprah’s TV couch. It’s a play on the old phrase, “jumping the shark,” which is when a television show has officially been on the air too long.
Most of the lists also indicate that “Dubya” as a nickname for President George W. Bush is spreading into international vernacular. Global Language Monitor released a list of top “Bushisms” in honor of our current president. Tops this year was Bush’s phrase, “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job,” in reference to his praise of former FEMA director Michael Brown for Gulf Coast hurricane relief. Brown resigned under a cloud of incompetence just days later.
The “Brownie” Bushism is probably the least alarming. Try this presidential quote: “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
That’s right, “catapult the propaganda.” The scary thing is how freakishly straight-forward he was in this statement. It’s like listening to a ninja pick out throwing stars at Home Depot. “I like these smaller ones. They fit into the pockets of my ninjamas.” If I ever develop talent or free time, my super-cool rock band will release an album called “Catapult the Propaganda.” Until then, I’ll just weep softly at my desk.
One word I did like was “spokesweasel,” from the slang list, in reference to public relations people. Why do I like it? Well, partly because the seedy practices of some PR types are becoming more common. Also, I read about the top slang list from a press release put out by a PR agency. That means a public relations professional was paid to announce an item disparaging his or her entire industry. Something about that seems ironically appropriate.
In case anyone isn’t entirely caught up with the times, I’m going to end my column with a paragraph that uses all 10 top “YouthSpeak”words from the Global Language Monitor list.
S’up, mang? Maybe it’s not by bizznizzle, but I’ve got to give mad props to these lexicographers for these fully crunk word lists, a’ight. Not only are they brill, they’re fundoo.
(PS: Lexicographers is not a YouthSpeak word, so don’t be using that one on the streets).
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.