Saturday, January 1, 2011

Austerity?

Merriam Webster named the word of 2010. Drumroll please.....Austerity. Yes, austerity is the word of the year. It is defined as "enforced or extreme economy" and "severity of manner, life, sternness." I'm glad to know that 2010 will be remembered by the word austerity, such a positive term. In a way, I can understand why it was chosen, because of the huge economical crisis, but it seems like there were some positive things that happened in 2010. This word selection goes to show how focused on materialism we are.
At the same time, I am glad that an intellectual word was chosen. Things could have been decided in the complete opposite direction, and the word of the year could have been slang or meaningless.
The good news is Lake Superior State University outlawed the words viral and epic. hahaha :)
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6 comments:

RHS Flash said...

This is really interesting. Somewhere I read that for the first time in memory health/lose weight is not first in New Year resolutions- it's saving money.

January 1, 2011 at 5:40 PM
Keely said...

I read about outlawing 'viral' and 'epic' as well, and I am quite glad they have been outlawed, but 'fail' must be included as well.
And 'Hella', as in "There were 'hella' people at that party, it was 'hella' fun." Honestly, you would think people would have some actual adjectives in their vocabularies.

January 1, 2011 at 6:02 PM
Rverma said...

If only people had caught onto this before the crisis.

January 1, 2011 at 10:52 PM
Yasmine_B said...

Austerity? That's kind of depressing. That seems like they summed up 2010 as a year of "severity" and "sternness." It was the start of a new decade and great things happened in 2010 so I vote they choose a new word.

January 2, 2011 at 10:48 AM
Michelle said...

Austerity... has a good ring to it :)

January 2, 2011 at 11:54 AM
Brit said...

Ah, and the New Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year was Sarah Palin's lovely portmanteau: refudiate. Ineptitude in the political system and a failing economy go hand in hand for the year 2010.

January 2, 2011 at 6:26 PM

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