images_words.jpgHere are the words chosen by the American Dialect Society as 2007’s best words or phrases:

  • Word of the Year: Subprime, an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage or investment.
  • Most Useful: Green, designates environmental concern.
  • Most Creative: Googleganger, person with your name who shows up when you Google yourself.
  • Most Unnecessary: Happy Kwanhanamas, Happy Holidays. Kwanza + Hanukkah + Christmas.
  • Most Outrageous: Toe-tapper, a homosexual. Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, was arrested in June for an encounter in a Minneapolis airport bathroom in which toe-tapping as said to have been used as a sexual come-on.

  • Most Euphemistic: Human terrain team, a group of social scientists employed by the U.S. military to serve as cultural advisers in Iraq or Afghanistan.
  • Most Likely To Succeed: Green, designates environmental concern.
  • Least Likely To Succeed: Strand-in, protest duplicating being stranded inside an airplane on a delayed flight.
  • Real Estate/Mortgage/Loan Words (New category): Subprime.