It's only words!

Words are my passion, as well as my trade, so when I find stories about words, I pay attention.

From Merriam-Webster:

Word of the Year 2011

SPRINGFIELD, MASS., December 15, 2011–Merriam-Webster Inc., America's leading dictionary publisher, has announced the Top Ten Words of the Year for 2011. The list reflects the interests and attitudes of visitors from around the world to Merriam-Webster.com and LearnersDictionary.com and is determined by the volume of user look-ups on those sites.

Topping the list is pragmatic, meaning "practical as opposed to idealistic," which received an unprecedented number of user lookups throughout 2011. Pragmatic is not associated with any one event but instead describes "an admirable quality that people value in themselves and wish for in others, especially in their leaders and their policies," said Peter Sokolowski, Editor at Large at Merriam-Webster. "It's a word that resonates with society as a whole; something people want to understand fully."

Number two on the list was ambivalence, which like pragmatic reflects an overall mood rather than a specific event. Ambivalence is defined as "simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings toward an object, person, or action" and as "continual fluctuation between one thing and its opposite." "We are struck by the unusually large volume of lookups for this word," said John Morse, President and Publisher. "We think it reflects the public attitude toward a wide range of issues, including the economy, the ongoing debates in Washington, the presidential election, and most recently the race for the Republican Party nomination."...

They have the top ten list here, and a very interesting list it is, too! Go look.

Then I found this on aol:

'Whatever' Voted Most Annoying Word For Third Year In A Row (POLL)

12/19/11

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Do you want to kill a conversation? Try saying "whatever."

Words like "you know" and "like" might be irritating to hear, but for the third year in a row, it's "whatever" that holds the most power to annoy, according to an annual survey by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

Nearly four in ten adults named "whatever" as the most annoying verbal filler in casual conversation, while one in five adults had similar disdain for "like" and 'you know."

"Just sayin'" and "seriously" were more forgiving to the ears, though still quite irritating, Marist found.

The telephone survey of 1,026 adults nationally had a margin of error of three percentage points.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; editing by Patricia Reaney)

(source)

Just some 'useful' information for you to use at any of this season's parties.

Of course, this video came to mind, as I read these stories..



Whaaaaaaaat? All part of the B*N*S*N service..

Just sayin'..

War On Terror News was inspired to write one of his columns by this Top Ten Words List.

Take a look: Pragmatic Views on Overcoming Insidious Ambivalence Towards Our Troops