WORDS OF THE YEAR 2006. The results are in...and out of this world!

WORD OF THE YEAR As determined by the American Dialect Society, the Word of the Year 2006 is plutoed. "To pluto is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet," says the ADS website.

Words related to Pluto seemed very strong going into the vote; the tally confirmed that. Plutoed (47) led the initial vote, followed by climate canary (16), prohibited liquids (15), macaca/macaca moment (13), YouTube (12), flog and surge (4 each), and murse (0). In the runoff, plutoed trounced climate canary 57-43.

NEW CATEGORY: PLUTO-RELATED WORDS This was the most decisive vote of the session: plutoed (87) over dwarf planet (5), pluton/plutonoid (3), and small solar system body (0).

NAME OF THE YEAR The American Name Society voted Pluto Name of the Year 2006. (We should all do as well as Pluto after a demotion.) The derisive term macaca was the runner-up.

MOST USEFUL This is the category in which climate canary prevailed with 50 votes, followed by data Valdez (21), flog (13), boomeritis (11), and sharrow (2).

MOST CREATIVE Here lactard (75) beat snowclone (27) in a runoff after an initial vote of lactard (47), snowclone (30), julie (16), and Fed-Ex (7).

MOST UNNECESSARY Last year words related to Tom Cruise were heavily represented within the Word of the Year competition; this year the Tomfluence persisted with winner SuriKat (56), which finished way ahead of the decider (26) and Fox lips (19).

MOST OUTRAGEOUS It was a good/bad year for celebrity kids beside SuriKat: Cambodian accessory (61) beat out sudden jihad syndrome (36) in a stunning turnaround after an initial vote for sudden jihad syndrome (38), Cambodian accessory (20), macaca (14), firecrotch (10), and the wonderful tramp stamp (7), which is often found near a whale tail and muffin top.

MOST EUPHEMISTIC It seems to me that waterboarding, which beat surge 65-31, has been around for ages, but that obviously did not get in the way of its victory. The initial vote was waterboarding (46), surge (26), lancing (23), and lyric malfunction (1).

MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED Hearty congratulations are due to YouTube (61), launched on the path to success over carbon (16), m-, man-, men- (9), macaca moment (5), and the decider (3). Excelsior!

LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED When is a loser a winner? When grup (81) crushes pwn (4) and stay the course (1), perhaps never to be seen again.

Previous coverage here