Words Of The Year

What English words got the most dictionary reference this year?  Oh, of  course, we know all the words and never resort to looking for a meaning or usage in a dictionary (if you believe that, look up the word "gullible").  But for the others, Miriam Webster Dictionary has released it's list of top ten words for 2014. This are words that had the biggest increase of "look-ups' this past year.  The winner....culture. It seems an ordinary word, but then the concept of it has been so distorted by political correctness that it's hard to now define. They googled many culture related terms this year- 'consumer culture', 'rape culture', 'culture of transparency', 'culture of winning',  'test prep culture', 'coffee culture' and more.

That choice by Webster joins Oxford Dictionary choice of  'vape' (see e-cigarette movement) and Dictionary.coms choice of "exposure" (the Ebola scare made many check that one) as words of the year.  In Webster's No. 2 spot is 'nostalgia'. This year was the 50th anniversaries of 1964, a very active one in which  the free speech movement began, the Civil Rights Act was passed, the adored Ford Mustang was first sold, and the British Music Invasion was signified by the Beatles coming to the  U.S. for the first time.

Next on the list are insidious, legacy, feminism and the French phrase 'je ne sais quoi' (some quality that makes a person or thing attractive....I know, I lack that quality).  Rounding out the Top 10 are innovation, surreptitious, autonomy and morbidity. Seems to me that most of these words are a bit down in tone. But then, it hasn't been a fun year for most of us. What most of the top ten show is how transitory the culture is today. and how easily led people are to the same things the culture promotes. I suppose the rapid and easy communication devices today account for much of that.

We are becoming a world that is very homogenized in what we think, how we act, what we are interested in and where we are led.