2017 Words of the Year

Before you completely psychologically move on to 2018, let’s have some fun looking back on the words of the year from 2017.

Collins Dictionary, American Dialect Society and the News on the Web Corpus: Fake News

The clear winner in the word-of-the-year follies was “fake news,” chosen by at least three different organizations: the American Dialect Society, Collins Dictionary, and the News on the Web Corpus.

The American Dialect Society word is based on a live vote by people who attend the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, which I had hoped to attend this year but didn’t because of travel problems. It looks like a lot of fun, and in addition to “fake news” as the word of the year, attendees also chose “broflake" as the most creative word of the year, blending “bro” like “dude” with the last part of “snowflake,” and defined as “a man or boy who lacks resilience or coping skills in the face of disagreements or setbacks.” They also chose “#MeToo” as the hashtag of the year.

“Fake news” also won in their “most likely to succeed” category. Previous “most likely to succeed” winners included “marriage equality” and “to ghost” (meaning to abruptly end a relationship by cutting off communication, especially online).

Collins is a British dictionary and noted a 365% increase in the term “fake news” in 2017 over 2016. The Collins blog post talked about the term emerging in 2016 when people noticed a large number of false news stories about US presidential candidates and then about how the term really took off in 2017 when it started being thrown around by politicians to describe any story they didn’t like. 

I was still a journalism professor in 2016, teaching social media, and I remember being really alarmed by all the fake news stories on Facebook, and then being just dismayed when the term “fake news” became politicized in 2017 because it made it so much harder to talk about the real problem. But people were using the term noticeably more often in 2017.

The News on the Web Corpus is run out of Brigham Young University by Mark Davies, and it also chose “fake news” as the word of the year based on data, looking at words that showed a big increase in use over the previous year and controlling for how often a word is or has been used in general. They found that in their corpus, “fake news” was used “more than five times as much in 2017 as it was in 2016,” so an even bigger increase than Collins saw.

“Alternative facts,” which won “euphemism of the year” in the American Dialect Society voting, came in second in the News on the Web analysis.

A couple of other interesting things emerged from the News on the Web corpus:

First, although use of the name “Trump” only increased by about 50%, they found a big increase in words derived from “Trump,” including “Trumpism,” “Trumpworld,” “Trump-like,” “Trumpery,” and so on.

Second, they found that “fidget spinner” had a spike in late May of 2017, but fizzled out, which matches what I saw on store shelves. They seemed to be everywhere, but only for a while.

Every other 2017 word-of-the-year winner also had a political sensibility. 

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Merriam-Webster: Feminism

Merriam-Webster chose “feminism,” noting that it saw a big increase in lookups for the word throughout the year with big spikes related to specific news events such as the Women’s March on Washington in January and the release of the Hulu series “The Handmaids Tale.”

Dictionary.com: Complicit

Dictionary.com chose “complicit,” saying it saw a 10,000% increase in lookups after Saturday Night Live “aired their satirical ad showing Ivanka Trump hawking a made-up perfume called Complicit,” and an even bigger spike a few weeks later when Ivanka Trump gave an interview saying she didn’t know what it meant to be complicit.

The Telegraph: Covfefe

The British newspaper “The Telegraph” ran a poll for its word-of-the-year, and its readers chose “covfefe” (C-O-V-F-E-F-E), which is actually not a real word. It showed up in a tweet from Donald Trump in late May when, from context, it appears he meant to type the word “coverage.” The tweet read “Despite the constant negative press covfefe,” which caused a flurry of confusion, jokes, and alarm. (Since the tweet also stopped mid-sentence, people wondered whether something had actually happened to the president.)

Cambridge Dictionary: Populism

The British Cambridge Dictionary, chose “populism” as its word of the year, which could apply to British, American, and global politics. The dictionary defines “populism” as “political ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want,” and the dictionary saw an overall increase in use, and spikes related to news events, such as when Pope Francis said that populism can mean different things in different parts of the world, but he worries that populism gave rise to Hitler and that in times of crisis, people sometimes lack good judgment. In other words, what they think they want might not be the best thing for them.

Oxford Dictionaries: Youthquake

Oxford Dictionaries, also a British dictionary, stuck to local politics with its choice: “youthquake.”

This one had many people in the US scratching their heads. I‘d never heard the term, but according to Oxford, its editors saw a fivefold increase in use from 2016 to 2017, largely related to the unexpectedly high number of young voters who turned out in the UK’s general election. It was a youthquake—like an earthquake,  significant and unexpected.

Australian National Dictionary Center: Kwaussie

The Australian National Dictionary Center also stuck to national politics with its choice: “Kwaussie.” (I hope I’m saying that right: K-W-A-U-S-S-I-E.) Like “broflake” and “youthquake,” “Kwaussie” is a blend, mixing “Kiwi” and “Aussie” to describe “a person who is a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand.” It became a big deal this year when, according to ABC News, “a dual citizenship crisis…prevented six senators, one deputy prime minister, a senate president, and one MP from holding office.”

Haggard Hawks: Agathism

And to end on a happy note, the Haggard Hawks website word of the year was “agathism,” the belief that all things eventually get better, though the means of getting there may not be easy.” It emerged as an English word in the early 1800s and comes from the Greek word “agathos,” which means “good” or “noble.” Haggard Hawks is a website that covers obscure words, language facts, and etymology.

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