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Googlegänger.
Global Warming.
Hill-Bill.
What do these words have in
common?
They are just a few of the nominations made by Dr. Wayne Glowka,
dean of arts and humanities at Reinhardt College, for the
American Dialect Society’s Words of the Year 2007 competition,
an annual event he currently chairs.
“The purpose of the Words of
the Year [WOTY] competition is to promote the
understanding of how language works,” says Glowka. “An important
part of language is that it is constantly new. When people need
a new word, they often don’t reference a dictionary—they just
make it up.”
For the course of the year before each annual competition,
Glowka collects various words that he has heard, read, or been
given by others. He then makes his final selections of words to
nominate for the competition based upon his own set criteria.
“I look for clever inventions mainly,” Glowka reveals.
“Publicity is an important part of the competition; therefore, I
look for words that I think news people will find interesting.
Funny words. Words that relate to memorable current events and
that are linguistically new.”
"Celebutard", "General Betray Us", "Bom
Chicka Wah Wah"
This year, Glowka prepared his list early and made his
nominations for words such as: “celebutard”—stupid famous
female; “General Betray Us”—General David Petraeus, US Commander
in Iraq; “strand-in”—protest duplicating being stranded inside
an airplane on a delayed flight; and “Bom Chicka Wah Wah”—a
phrase for X-rated being hot, among many others. Visit
www.americandialect.org for a complete list and definitions
of Glowka’s nominated words.
Selection Process Described
On January 3, 2008 in Chicago, Ill., Glowka, who presides over
the committee meeting, and his colleagues in the American
Dialect Society and the Linguistic Society of America, along
with several dictionary editors, will present words that they
want to nominate for WOTY. After all nominations are made, the
group then places the words into categories to create a usable
list to present to a larger group of people. In the past, such
categories as most useful, most unnecessary and most outrageous,
to name a few, were used.
The following day, a larger group of about 60-100 people will
attend the competition to hear the presentation of the final
nominated words. Those in attendance are allowed to stand and
make statements for or against a word. The presentation of words
concludes with a hand-vote for the top words in each category,
and then one word (or phrase) is voted-in to become the “word of
the year.”
History of WOTY
The WOTY competition was created in 1990 by Allan Metcalf,
executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, to showcase
the trends in language and its constant change in relation to
society and current events. The American Dialect Society was
founded in 1889, and is dedicated to the study of the English
language in North America, and of other
languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or
influenced by it.
Glowka Background
Glowka became the dean of arts and humanities at
Reinhardt College in July of this year. Prior to coming to
Reinhardt, he served as a professor of English and as the
coordinator of graduate studies in English at Georgia College &
State University for 27 years.
He has been a member of the American Dialect
Society since 1980. Along with his duties in the WOTY
competition, Glowka serves as the editor of “Among the New
Words,” a column in the American Dialect Society’s quarterly
journal, American Speech. Last year, Glowka was
interviewed about WOTY by newspapers including The Hartford
Courant, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and
The Washington Post. He was also interviewed for a
program on the Discovery Channel, to be called
The Joy of Lex,
which will appear on television screens in the coming year.
For more information about the WOTY competition
or the American Dialect Society, visit
www.americandialect.org, or contact Dr. Wayne Glowka at
AWG@reinhardt.edu.
For more information
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