Word of the Year: 'Subprime" voted by the American Dialect Society

If you thought there should be a law against some language usage/abusage, this is about as close as it gets. The American Dialect Society’s 18th annual vote has definitely picked a global, fully functional, form of abuse.

The ADS award is an acknowledgment of what the word “subprime” now means to the world. The word has gone from an obscure financial term to a world wide curse, in less than a year. Language, as a recognition of social consciousness, concerns and commentary is a good medium. It widens the frame of reference, unlike many forms of survey, which actually reduce it by limiting choices. The American Dialect Society site was founded in 1889, and the home page blurb describes the organization pretty economically, too: “Members in the 118-year-old organization include linguists, lexicographers, etymologists, grammarians, historians, researchers, writers, authors, editors, professors, university students, and independent scholars. In conducting the vote, they act in fun and do not pretend to be officially inducting words into the English language. Instead they are highlighting that language change is normal, ongoing, and entertaining.” Language studies have come a long way when haggard experts conducted duels to the death with only their bare vocabularies and a steely glint in their diction. The unearthly snarl of the etymologist is rarely heard, these days. In ancient times they used to roam in packs, savaging defenceless literati. Amid the horrified halls of academe, where ghosts of linguistic methodologies are still to be seen, even the mighty blunt drone of pedantic syntax, once known as management science, now known as macro-conceptual social gynecology, is usually silent, apart from the odd scream. The American Dialect Society has seen the rise of a language that didn’t exist when it was started. There’s even an archive (for members), from 1925. To be a member, you need a paid subscription. Appropriately, their Words of the Year also include Most Unnecessary. There’s an idea that might catch on, sometime in the next 100,000 years. A browse through their awards over the last 18 years is well worth it. Some words are now common, many have been and gone. I think the rule is that if you want to survive as a word, get written by Shakespeare, not Madison Avenue.