American Dialect Society Words of the Year
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Brangelina: the celebrity couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
brown-out: the poor handling of an emergency.
Bumper Nutz: fake testicles hung from the rear end of a vehicle.
crotchfruit: a child; children. Perhaps inspired by the expression the fruit of one�s loins, this term began among proponents of child-free public spaces, but has since spread to parents who use it jocularly.
Cruisazy: crazy in the manner of Tom Cruise.
Cruiselex: Cruiselex is not itself a nominated word, but the term refers collectively to all the other Tom-Cruise-related words of the year.
Cyber Monday: the Monday after Thanksgiving, purported to be the day that most online shopping takes place.
disaster industrial complex: the array of businesses which make profit from by providing emergency services, especially those that result from no-bid government contracts.
Ex-Lax option: nuclear option; immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
extraordinary rendition: the surrendering of a suspect or detainee to another jurisdiction, especially overseas.
flee-ancee: runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks.
folksonomy: a taxonomy created by an ad hoc group of non-experts. From folk + ta(x)onomy.
GSAVE: Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.
Heck of a job: catch phrase coined by President Bush.
holiday tree: a Christmas tree.
holistic practitioner: a prostitute.
intelligent design n. the theory that life is could only have been created by a sentient being. Often acronymized and pronounced as ID, the theory is being pushed by proponents of creation science as a necessary part of school curricula alongside explanations of evolution.
internal nutrition: force-feeding a prisoner against his or her will.
jump the couch: to exhibit strange or frenetic behavior. Inspired by the couchbouncing antics of Tom Cruise on Oprah Winfrey�s talk show in May. It derives from an earlier term, jump the shark, meaning to (irretrievably) diminish in quality; to outlast public interest or popular support.
K Fed: Kevin Federline, Mr. Britney Spears.
Katrina: all Katrina-related words.
lifehack: to make one�s day-to-day behaviors or activities more efficient. Also as a noun. Lifehacks apply the make-do, can-do, what-will-it-do attitude that originated in computer hacking.
man date: when two heterosexual men engage in an activity together without romantic implications.
metrospiritual: an unspecific, cosmopolitan, and expansive view of spirituality. Inspired by metrosexual.
muffin top: the bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-rider jeans.
patent troll: a person or business, especially a lawyer, who applies for or owns a patent with no intention of developing the product but with every intention of launching lawsuits against patent infringers.
pinosaur: a very old Wollemi pine tree near Australia�s Blue Mountain.
podcast: a digital feed containing audio or video files for downloading to a portable MP3 player. From the brand name MP3 player iPod + broadcast.
pope-squatting: registering a domain name that is the same of a new pope before the pope chooses his new name in order to profit from it.
refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.
reverse logistics: a process by which you de-supply a warehouse or distribute stored merchandise.
sudoku: a number puzzle in which numbers 1 through 9 must be placed into a grid of cells so that each row or column contains only one of each. The current craze started in Japan, caught on in the U.K. in 2004, and then exploded in the U.S. in 2005. 23,
TomKat: the celebrity couple of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
truthiness: the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.
VBIED: a car bomb. An acronym for Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device. Sometimes pronounced vee-bid or vee-bidder.
whale tail: the appearance of thong or g-string underwear above the waistband of pants, shorts, or a skirt. Also known as a longhorn.
Whizzinator: a trademarked urinating device using a realistic prosthetic penis and synthetic urine in order to pass a drug test.
brown-out: the poor handling of an emergency.
Bumper Nutz: fake testicles hung from the rear end of a vehicle.
crotchfruit: a child; children. Perhaps inspired by the expression the fruit of one�s loins, this term began among proponents of child-free public spaces, but has since spread to parents who use it jocularly.
Cruisazy: crazy in the manner of Tom Cruise.
Cruiselex: Cruiselex is not itself a nominated word, but the term refers collectively to all the other Tom-Cruise-related words of the year.
Cyber Monday: the Monday after Thanksgiving, purported to be the day that most online shopping takes place.
disaster industrial complex: the array of businesses which make profit from by providing emergency services, especially those that result from no-bid government contracts.
Ex-Lax option: nuclear option; immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
extraordinary rendition: the surrendering of a suspect or detainee to another jurisdiction, especially overseas.
flee-ancee: runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks.
folksonomy: a taxonomy created by an ad hoc group of non-experts. From folk + ta(x)onomy.
GSAVE: Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.
Heck of a job: catch phrase coined by President Bush.
holiday tree: a Christmas tree.
holistic practitioner: a prostitute.
intelligent design n. the theory that life is could only have been created by a sentient being. Often acronymized and pronounced as ID, the theory is being pushed by proponents of creation science as a necessary part of school curricula alongside explanations of evolution.
internal nutrition: force-feeding a prisoner against his or her will.
jump the couch: to exhibit strange or frenetic behavior. Inspired by the couchbouncing antics of Tom Cruise on Oprah Winfrey�s talk show in May. It derives from an earlier term, jump the shark, meaning to (irretrievably) diminish in quality; to outlast public interest or popular support.
K Fed: Kevin Federline, Mr. Britney Spears.
Katrina: all Katrina-related words.
lifehack: to make one�s day-to-day behaviors or activities more efficient. Also as a noun. Lifehacks apply the make-do, can-do, what-will-it-do attitude that originated in computer hacking.
man date: when two heterosexual men engage in an activity together without romantic implications.
metrospiritual: an unspecific, cosmopolitan, and expansive view of spirituality. Inspired by metrosexual.
muffin top: the bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-rider jeans.
patent troll: a person or business, especially a lawyer, who applies for or owns a patent with no intention of developing the product but with every intention of launching lawsuits against patent infringers.
pinosaur: a very old Wollemi pine tree near Australia�s Blue Mountain.
podcast: a digital feed containing audio or video files for downloading to a portable MP3 player. From the brand name MP3 player iPod + broadcast.
pope-squatting: registering a domain name that is the same of a new pope before the pope chooses his new name in order to profit from it.
refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.
reverse logistics: a process by which you de-supply a warehouse or distribute stored merchandise.
sudoku: a number puzzle in which numbers 1 through 9 must be placed into a grid of cells so that each row or column contains only one of each. The current craze started in Japan, caught on in the U.K. in 2004, and then exploded in the U.S. in 2005. 23,
TomKat: the celebrity couple of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
truthiness: the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.
VBIED: a car bomb. An acronym for Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device. Sometimes pronounced vee-bid or vee-bidder.
whale tail: the appearance of thong or g-string underwear above the waistband of pants, shorts, or a skirt. Also known as a longhorn.
Whizzinator: a trademarked urinating device using a realistic prosthetic penis and synthetic urine in order to pass a drug test.
