Blog and words of the year December 1, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Memetics , trackbackNews yesterday that “Blog” has been dubbed word of the year 2004 by Merriam-Webster with the runners up being
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration
Strange choices, some of them, arn’t they? I’ve heard of the defenstrations of Prague ( 1st 1419, 2nd 1618) but who chucked someone famous out of a window in 2004?
And maybe Blog should be the word of next year really.
More interesting perhaps, are the words of the year in retrospect. If we look at the Oxford Dictionaries’ words of year for the past century some appear a lot earlier than you may expect. What was the word of the year when you were born?
1904 Hip
1905 Whizzo
1906 Teddy bear
1907 Egghead
1908 Realpolitik
1909 Tiddly-om-pom-pom
1910 Sacred cow
1911 Gene
1912 Blues
1913 Celeb
1914 Cheerio
1915 Civvy street
1916 U-boat
1917 Tailspin
1918 Ceasefire
1919 Ad-lib
1920 Demob
1921 Pop
1922 Wizard
1923 Hem-line
1924 Lumpenproletariat
1925 Avant garde
1926 Kitsch
1927 Sudden death
1928 Big Apple
1929 Sex
1930 Drive-in
1931 Mickey Mouse
1932 Bagel
1933 Dumb down
1934 Pesticide
1935 Racism
1936 Spliff
1937 Dunk
1938 Cheeseburger
1939 Blitzkrieg
1940 Molotov cocktail
1941 Snafu
1942 Buzz
1943 Pissed off
1944 DNA
1945 Mobile phone
1946 Megabucks
1947 Wonderbra
1948 Cool
1949 Big Brother
1950 Brainwashing
1951 Fast food
1952 Generation X
1953 Hippy
1954 Non-U
1955 Boogie
1956 Sexy
1957 Psychedelic
1958 Beatnik
1959 Cruise missile
1960 Cyborg
1961 Awesome
1962 Bossa nova
1963 Peacenik
1964 Byte
1965 Miniskirt
1966 Acid
1967 Love-in
1968 It-girl
1969 Microchip
1970 Hypermarket
1971 Green
1972 Watergate
1973 F-word
1974 Punk
1975 Detox
1976 Trekkie
1977 Naff all
1978 Trainers
1979 Karaoke
1980 Power dressing
1981 Toy-boy
1982 Hip-hop
1983 Beatbox
1984 Double click
1985 OK yah
1986 Mobile
1987 Virtual reality
1988 Gangsta
1989 Latte
1990 Applet
1991 Hot-desking
1992 URL
1993 Have it large
1994 Botox
1995 Kitten heels
1996 Ghetto fabulous
1997 Dot-commer
1998 Text message
1999 Google
2000 Bling bling
2001 9/11
2002 Axis of evil
2003 Sex up
2004 Chav
And there are some fascinating phrases with explanations at the American Dialect Society word of the year site
such as
Most Useful: word or phrase which most fills a need for a new word
Winner flexitarian: noun, a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat. 31-41
You’d need the context to understand it though, “bacon vegetarian” seems clearer to me.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
I have been described as ‘a vegetarian who likes her steaks rare’ - much better than a flexitarian.
Beatnik
Blog : word of the year 2004
Merriam-Webster started to archive words in the 1880'.
It tracks words usage and it seems that blog as been the most used new word for the year 2004.
This is not astonishing since it has been related to war, politic and media.
I don't agr…
I was pleased to get “boogie”, it made me think about what my parents must have been doing!
karaoke !!!