I hope you don’t decide to Pluto this blog because of its truthiness, but if you are a real decider, you may.
The former English teacher in me has enjoyed the revelation of the best new words of the past year across the last few days. I still love words and the evolution of our language across generations. New vocabulary, other than the temporary catch phrases popularized by certain entertainers, recognizes that our society is not static. The words create a verbal cue that we are not the same today as we were yesterday, and it excites me to be reminded of change.
Change does not always mean progress as indicated by two of the most copied new words of the year. Colbert’s “truthiness” indicates the lack of integrity to many of the facts we are given and resorts to the gut feeling we all have for understanding real from fact. It is too bad that we have to rely on truthiness instead of the word of our journalists and leaders.
Likewise, decider became another oft used word after President Bush declared himself a “decider” as the leader of our nation. Sadly our leader does not have a vocabulary reflective of the Ivy League degree he holds. While the word was often used, it failed to gain acceptance as one of the best new words of the years from either group to rate the new words much in the same way as Republicans failed to gain acceptance by the public who rate the government and go out and vote.
After being demoted from planet, Pluto was promoted to verb, and in the transition came to stand for something that loses rank or prestige (see Republicans in the preceding paragraph).
I’m looking forward to the vocabulariazation of 2007!
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