# American Dialect Society's Word of the Year for 1990 - 2014



## Josiah (Jan 17, 2015)

1990: bushlips (similar to "bullshit" – stemming from President George H. W. Bush's 1988 "Read my lips: no new taxes" broken promise)
1991: mother of all (as in Saddam Hussein's foretold "Mother of all battles")
1992: Not! (meaning "just kidding")
1993: information superhighway
1994: cyber, morph (to change form)
1995: web and (to) newt (to act aggressively as a newcomer, like Speaker Newt Gingrich during the Contract with America)
1996: mom (as in "soccer mom")
1997: millennium bug
1998: e- (as in "e-mail" or "e-commerce")
1999: Y2K
2000: chad (from the 2000 presidential election controversy in Florida)
2001: 9-11
2002: weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
2003: metrosexual
2004: red state, blue state, purple state (from the United States presidential election, 2004)
2005: truthiness (popularized on The Colbert Report)
2006: plutoed (demoted or devalued, as happened to the former planet Pluto)
2007: subprime (an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment)
2008: bailout (in the specific sense of the rescue by the government of companies on the brink of failure, including large players in the banking industry)
2009: tweet (a short, timely message sent via the Twitter.com service, and verb, the act of sending such a message)
2010: app (an abbreviated form of application, a software program for a computer or phone operating system)
2011: occupy (verb or noun inspired from the Occupy movements of 2011)
2012: hashtag (a word or phrase preceded by a hash symbol (#), used on Twitter to mark a topic or make a commentary)
2013: because introducing a noun, adjective, or other part of speech (e.g., “because reasons,” “because awesome”).
2014: #blacklivesmatter: hashtag used as protest over blacks killed at the hands of police (esp. Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner in Staten Island).


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## Josiah (Jan 17, 2015)

My apologies to our international friends for being so parochial.


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## SifuPhil (Jan 17, 2015)

24 years worth, and I've used them all!


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## Josiah (Jan 18, 2015)

I was unfamiliar with metrosexual and found this test


You might be "metrosexual" if: 


1. You just can't walk past a Banana Republic store without making a purchase. 


2. You own 20 pairs of shoes, half a dozen pairs of sunglasses, just as many watches and you carry a man-purse. 


3. You see a stylist instead of a barber, because barbers don't do highlights. 


4. You can make her lamb shanks and risotto for dinner and Eggs Benedict for breakfast... all from scratch. 


5. You only wear Calvin Klein boxer-briefs. 


6. You shave more than just your face. You also exfoliate and moisturize. 


7. You would never, ever own a pickup truck. 


8. You can't imagine a day without hair styling products. 


9. You'd rather drink wine than beer... but you'll find out what estate and vintage first. 


10. Despite being flattered (even proud) that gay guys hit on you, you still find the thought of actually getting intimate with another man truly repulsive.
"Some people think he's gay, but he's actually metrosexual."


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## Vivjen (Jan 18, 2015)

I suspect many of those would be the same here....we certainly use a lot!


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