1/12/2006

Words of the Year

The American Dialect Society has come out with it's "Words of the Year" list for 2005.

The winner is "truthiness": the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. We can thank Stephen Colbert for that one.

Some of my personal favorites:

jump the couch: to exhibit strange or frenetic behavior. Inspired by the couchbouncing antics of Tom Cruise on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show in May. I liked "jump the shark", so I like this one too.

brown-out: the poor handling of an emergency. Thanks, FEMA!

lifehack: to make one’s day-to-day behaviors or activities more efficient. Nice to see "hack" swinging back to a more positive connotation.

muffin top: the bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-rider jeans. One word: eeeewwww.

flee-ancée: runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks. Sums it all up quite nicely.

crotchfruit: a child; children. Really gross sounding, but probably meant to be that way. Typically used by people who don't like kids.

Cruisazy: crazy in the manner of Tom Cruise. Not just your average, run-of-the mill crazy.


The English language is truly a beautiful thing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can not get muffin top out of my head. I think I have this (only when I sit down though) does that count?

Anonymous said...

Muffin tops are okay as long as they are covered by your shirt. Nobody wants to see them on display.