Webster's Dictionary Awareness

It is language that tells us about the nature of a thing, provided that we respect language’s own nature. In the meantime, to be sure, there rages round the earth an unbridled yet clever talking, writing, and broadcasting of spoken words. Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man. Heidegger

Well, it’s that magical time of the year again when English receives one of its few officiated, marketed births.  The Webster’s Dictionary team has brought up into Anglo consciousness their 2009 word-O-the-year. Unveiled all over the floor and some.  As good critics we can see what is noteworthy by what was overlooked:  cloud computing, wrap rage, wallet biopsy, go viral, and netbook .  These aren’t words, but rather expressions — the kind of growths Dr.Johnson would have enjoyed having a good shout about.  Yes, that is an preposition. 

The winner was distracted driving: “…another reflection – and consequence – of our ongoing romance with all things digital and mobile and the enhanced capabilities they provide.” And just to prove they eat their own dogfood, the Webster’s team commented that this new word was in fact an example of Hypallage a literary device more commonly known as “transferred epithet”.   Wondering how neologisms like this percolate into print the Webster’s team explained “it is a product of our language monitoring program, by which we collect examples of emerging new English – to the tune of nearly 3,000 new examples per month. Our citation files now hold approximately 2 million such examples.”  I can only imagine.  You only need to spend a bit of time on some of the gaming forums I know to spot the low hanging fruit.   I wonder how other languages are coping with the always-on, attention-awareness culture we’re inventing.

References:

• Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter,  Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1971.
• found via Fritinancy by Nancy Friedman
• and more from Word Routes by Ben Zimmer