Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Vote for a word of the year

Oxford Languages is asking the public to vote for a word of the year. The choices, which for some reason Oxford lists out of alphabetical order: metaverse, #IStandWith, and goblin mode. Vote here.

My choice for word of the year: angst. As in a Ted Berrigan poem from A Certain Slant of Sunlight (Oakland, CA: O Books, 1988):

Angst

I had angst.
Me too. “The news” is a nightmare.

Thus far two dictionaries have chosen their words of the year. Why didn’t Oxford Languages do likewise? Maybe they, too, had angst.

*

December 5: The votes are in, and Oxford Languages has goblin mode for its word of the year. Oy and gevalt.

[“I had angst”: yes, that’s the whole poem.]

comments: 3

Frex said...

I vote for that poem to be Poem of the Year.
Frex = Fresca

Daughter Number Three said...

I have an almost allergic reaction to the phrase "I stand with." Not sure why. Maybe because I first heard it when Rand Paul was filibustering, and "stand" rhymes with "rand."

Michael Leddy said...

I think of it as performative in the pejorative sense, as it doesn’t require you to do anything, not even literally stand. I voted for it though, as I couldn’t get with anything Zuckerberg, and goblin mode seems more appropriate to 2020 or 2021, when probably more people were inside all day in pajamas.These choices seem to me a slightly pathetic attempt to stir up interest, as when dictionaries announce new slangy words added.