From Thursday, January 3, 2013, through Saturday, January 5, ADS will hold its next annual meeting at the Boston Marriott Copley Place, hosted as usual by the Linguistic Society of America.
Monday, August 13 is the deadline for proposals for 20-minute presentations. All you need is a title and an abstract of 150 to 300 words. Send it via e-mail to Executive Secretary Allan Metcalf at americandialect@mac.edu.
Presenters must be current members of the American Dialect Society join here.
Audio-visual equipment: An LCD projector will be available for all presentations along with a microphone. If you will need other equipment, please say so when you send your proposal.
Scheduling: If you have a preference for day or time of your presentation, please indicate that too. We cannot guarantee the time you prefer, but the program committee will try to accommodate you. The meeting will follow our customary schedule:
Thursday, January 3: Executive Council and annual business meeting in the afternoon. Program session in late afternoon, followed by Words of the Year nominations.
Friday, January 4: Programs sessions in morning and afternoon. Words of the Year vote and Bring-Your-Own-Book reception in the early evening.
Saturday, January 5: Program sessions in morning and afternoon; Annual Luncheon in between.
Proposals will be judged anonymously by a committee chaired by Jesse Sheidlower, ADS president-elect. If your proposal is accepted, you’ll be asked for an abstract of no more than 200 words for the LSA program.
Special sessions: If you would like to propose a special session with a number of presenters, don’t wait till August 13 but get in touch with the program chair right away at jester@panix.com.
Teaching: If you have an idea for a special session on teaching, send it directly to the chair of the Committee on Teaching, Anne Curzan, at acurzan@umich.edu.
Session chairs: If you’re interested in chairing a session, let the Executive Secretary know at americandialect@mac.edu.. Tell him any preference you have for time or topic.
Travel grants for students: Four travel grants of $500 each will be awarded to students whose papers have been chosen for the program. Furthermore, all students who are members of ADS are invited to attend the Annual Luncheon for free.
Travel grant for ADS member: The third annual Audrey Duckert Memorial Travel Award of $500 to attend the Annual Meeting will be given to an ADS member. The recipient will be chosen by ADS President Luanne von Schneidemesser. Applications in the form of a letter to President Schneidemesser will be due September 1, after the program for the Annual Meeting has been determined. Audrey Duckert was a long-time member of ADS and co-founder of the Dictionary of American Regional English.
Hotel and registration: ADS members will be eligible to reserve rooms and register for the meeting at LSA member rates. For details see the website www.lsadc.org.
Future LSA-ADS meetings: 2014 January 2–5, Hilton Minneapolis. 2015: January 8-11, Hilton San Francisco Union Square. 2016: January 7-10, Washington (D.C.) Marriott Marquis.
WOTY: As we have done for two decades now, we will choose candidates for Word of the Year on Thursday and vote for our WOTY the next day, with our Bring Your Own Book exhibit and reception immediately following. If you have a nominee for WOTY 2012, you can send it to our New Words Committee chair, Benjamin Zimmer, at bzimmer@thinkmap.com.
HILTON PORTLAND-JAN. 6 — In its 22nd annual words of the year vote, with record attendance, the American Dialect Society voted “occupy” (verb, noun, and combining form referring to the Occupy protest movement) as the word of the year for 2011.
Photo by Jason Riggle.
Presiding at the Jan. 6 voting session were ADS Executive Secretary Allan Metcalf of MacMurray College, and Ben Zimmer, chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society and executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com. Zimmer is also a language columnist for the Boston Globe.
“It’s a very old word, but over the course of just a few months it took on another life and moved in new and unexpected directions, thanks to a national and global movement,” Zimmer said. “The movement itself was powered by the word.”
Word of the Year is interpreted in its broader sense as “vocabulary item”-not just words but phrases. The words or phrases do not have to be brand-new, but they have to be newly prominent or notable in the past year. The vote is the longest-running such vote anywhere, the only one not tied to commercial interests, and the word-of-the-year event up to which all others lead. It is fully informed by the members’ expertise in the study of words, but it is far from a solemn occasion. Members in the 122-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.
In a companion vote, sibling organization the American Name Society voted “Arab Spring” as Name of the Year for 2011 in its eighth annual name-of-the-year contest. It refers to popular political uprisings in Middle Eastern countries.
AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY VOTE TALLIES
The number after each nomination is the number of votes it received. Numbers separated by slash marks indicate a run-off. Voting totals for each category might not be identical because the number of voters might have changed for each category.
WORD OF THE YEAR
occupy – verb, noun, and combining form referring to the Occupy protest movement. 82/174 WINNER
FOMO – acronym for “Fear of Missing Out,” describing anxiety over being inundated by information on social media. 41/28
the 99%, 99 percenters – those held to be at a financial or political disadvantage to the top moneymakers, the one-percenters. 43/24
humblebrag – expression of false humility, especially by celebrities on Twitter. 30
job creator – a member of the top one-percent of moneymakers. 4
MOST USEFUL
humblebrag – expression of false humility, especially by celebrities on Twitter. 87/121 WINNER
occupy – verb, noun, and combining form referring to the Occupy protest movement. 70/102
FOMO – acronym for “Fear of Missing Out,” describing anxiety over being inundated by information on social media. 25
tablet – lightweight portable computer with a touchscreen to input data. 30
MOST CREATIVE
Mellencamp – a woman who has aged out of being a “cougar” (after John Cougar Mellencamp). 103 WINNER
bunga bunga – name for sex parties allegedly involving former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. 21
kardash – unit of measurement consisting of 72 days, after the short-lived marriage of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries (coined by Weird Al Yankovic). 82
put a bird on it – to add artistic flair to something, usu. used ironically or humorously. 23
MOST UNNECESSARY
bi-winning – term used by Charlie Sheen to describe himself pridefully, dismissing accusations of being bipolar. 77/156 WINNER
amazeballs – slang form for “amazing.” 82/85
planking – posing for a photograph, esp. in a public place, with one’s body in a stiff, prone position, for circulation online. 13
Qwikster : short-lived Netflix spinoff of its DVD rental service, separated from its streaming. 44
MOST OUTRAGEOUS
assholocracy – rule by obnoxious multi-millionaires. 166 WINNER
deather – one who doubts the official story of the killing of Osama bin Laden. 35
botoxionist – a doctor who administers Botox injections. 1
MOST EUPHEMISTIC
job creator – a member of the top one-percent of moneymakers. 111 WINNER
artisan, artisanal – faux-fancy term used to describe food and other products. 78
regime alteration – alternative to “regime change” promoted by Obama administration in some Middle Eastern countries. 19
sugar-coated Satan sandwich : something bad on the inside that looks good on the outside, as used by Missouri U.S Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. 1
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
cloud – online space for the large-scale processing and storage of data. 155 WINNER
Arab Spring – a series of popular uprisings in Middle Eastern countries against dictatorial regimes. 54
tiger mom, tiger mother – an exceedingly strict parent (after Amy Chua’s memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”).
LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
brony – adult male fan of the “My Little Pony” cartoon franchise. 103 WINNER
Tebowing – posing for photograph praying on one knee, after Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. 47
9-9-9 – tax plan proposed by Herman Cain (9% business tax, 9% personal income tax, 9% federal sales tax). 65
OCCUPY WORDS (new category)
the 99%, 99 percenters – those held to be at a financial or political disadvantage to the top moneymakers, the one-percenters. n-percenters, n-percent. 219 WINNER
occupy – verb, noun, and combining form referring to the Occupy protest movement. 17
people’s mic, human microphone – method of amplifying a person’s speech by having surrounding people repeat it line by line 7
twinkling – system of wiggly hand gestures to register approval or disapproval. 9
…
Read or download the entire press release in PDF form.
All previous years’ winners are here.
