Merriam-Webster Announces
"Culture" As 2014 Word Of The Year
Merriam-Webster Inc.,
America's leading dictionary publisher, has announced its top ten
Words of the Year for 2014. This year's list was compiled by analyzing the
top lookups in the online dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com and focusing on the
words that showed the greatest increase in lookups this year as compared to
last year. The results, based on approximately 100 million lookups a month,
shed light on topics and ideas that sparked the nation's interest in 2014.
The Word of the Year,
with the greatest number of lookups and a significant increase over last year,
is culture. Culture is not associated
with any one event, but instead dominated the headlines this year, on topics
ranging from "celebrity culture" to "rape culture" to
"company culture." In years
past, lookups for the word culture spiked in the fall, as students encountered
the word in titles and descriptions of courses and books, but this year lookups
have moved from seasonal to persistent, as culture has become a term frequently
used in discussions of social phenomena.
"Culture is a
word that we seem to be relying on more and more. It allows us to identify and
isolate an idea, issue, or group with seriousness," explains Peter
Sokolowski, Editor at Large for Merriam-Webster. "And it's efficient: we
talk about the 'culture' of a group rather than saying 'the typical habits,
attitudes, and behaviors' of that group. So we think that it may be the
increased use of this newer sense of the word culture that is catching people's
attention and driving the volume of lookups."
1. Culture
2. Nostalgia
3. Insidious
4. Legacy
5. Feminism
6. Je ne sais quoi
7. Innovation
8. Surreptitious
9. Autonomy
10. Morbidity
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