#125 Word of the Year vote coming soon

The American Dialect Society votes each year on “Word of the Year” and for 2002 it was “weapons of mass destruction” receiving 38 out of 60 votes, coming in ahead of “google” as a verb and “blog” which received 6 votes (both of which I use much more frequently than WMD) .

The next vote, on words for 2003, will take place Friday, January 9, 2004, at the American Dialect Society's annual meeting in Boston at the Sheraton Hotel. Possibly it is too late, but they say on the web site that nominations for words of the year 2003 are welcome anytime. Send them to the chair of the society's New Words Committee, Professor Wayne Glowka of Georgia College and State University, at wglowka@mail.gcsu.edu.

American Dialect Society sponsors the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). There is a link on the DARE site to the reading of material by people from various regions. In “Arthur the Rat,” I thought the woman from Wisconsin sounded best, but then I grew up in northern Illinois, probably within 100 miles of her.