Plutoed!
Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 9:01 pm
(CNN) -- Pluto may no longer be a planet, but it has a new claim to fame: "Plutoed"
has been chosen 2006 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society.
The society defined "to pluto" as "to demote or devalue someone or something, as
happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International
Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet."
The former planet had some tough competition in the voting, which took place Friday
at the ADS' annual meeting, held in Anaheim, California.
"Plutoed" won in a runoff against "climate canary," defined as "an organism or species
whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on
the horizon."
The runner-up was "macaca" or "macaca moment," defined as "treating an American
citizen as an alien" -- a reference to a campaign remark by former Virginia Sen.
George Allen that some say marked the beginning of the end for his re-election hopes.
Also in the running for Word of the Year were YouTube; surge (referring to a large, but
brief, increase in troop strength); and flog ("a fake blog created by a corporation to
promote a product or a television show").
Like any good awards show, the ADS meeting had multiple categories.
In the "Most Unnecessary" category, "SuriKat" (the supposed nickname of the baby girl
of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes) beat out "the decider," President Bush's description
in April of his position in relation to whether Donald Rumsfeld kept his job as secretary
of defense.
The "Most Outrageous" award went to "Cambodian accessory," defined as "Angelina
Jolie's adopted child who is Cambodian."
In the "Most Euphemistic" category, the winner was "waterboarding," defined as "an
interrogation technique in which the subject is immobilized and doused with water to
simulate drowning."
The ADS has been choosing Words of the Year since 1990. The Word of the Year
for 2005 was "truthiness," invented by Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," and
defined by the ADS as "what one wishes to be the truth regardless of the facts."
(Read the full list of winners for 2006 and past years)
Winning words or phrases don't have to be brand new; what's important is that they
gained new prominence in the past year.
The society is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and
includes academics, writers, and others.
