Word of the Year wrap-up

Well, if you care, you long since know that tweet won the American Dialect Society's WOTY last night and google won Word of the Decade. Ben Zimmer's post on the Log is the obvious place for more, and the ADS list has some discussion too. The event was, obviously, being discussed on freaking twitter during the discussions. Opponents of tweet had good arguments — like Eric Raimy's that all supporting comments were disqualified: over 140 characters. But it was noted that google was a wise choice: They can fund the field. Yeah, out of their petty cash.

Most like to succeed is twenty ten as a pronunciation of this year. As noted, the ADS may have finally picked a word in that category that will succeed. Who knows. Most euphemistic was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I wasn't terribly disappointed on most counts ... the interjection fail! is useful. It was slightly surprising maybe that the -er of birther and tenther didn't do better. Still when the editor of American Speech starts his comments with "now, I like a good suffix, but ..." you figure it's going down in flames. I did want to see teabagger win something. Oh well.

The session played off of PETA's sea kitten (new name for 'fish') a bunch, but that's kinda thin material for humor.

In other news, quasi-official meme of the conference appears to be "will X for beer". Pass it on.