Word of the Year 2008: The Results are In!

As predicted here, Barack Hussein Obama won Name of the Year from the American Name Society.

But the results of the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year 2008 included some surprises. The Word of the Year 2008 was bailout, with my favorite Barack Obama coming in second, lipstick on a pig third, and change, shovel-ready, and game-changer following in that order.

Barack Obama did better in the Most Useful category (go figure), winning ahead of text(ing), bailout (go figure again), and Palinesque.

Most Creative was recombobulation area (an area at a Milwaukee airport where people who've passed through security can get there stuff together again). Lagging behind were long photo, skadoosh, and rofflenui.

Most Unnecessary was moofing (working "on the go" with laptop and cellphone). Not quite as unnecessary were First Dude (snap!) and bromance.

Most Outrageous was one of my favorites: terrorist fist jab. Less outrageous were body-snarking, fish pedicure, and baby mama.

The amazing choice for Most Euphemistic was scooping technician (a person who scoops poop). That's pretty outrageous to me. Picking up after scooping technician were age-doping (falsifying age-qualifying records at sporting events) and thought showers (a PC substitute for brainstorms).

Most Likely to Succeed was shovel-ready (an infrastructure project that's just waiting for funding). Less likely were Twitter-related tw prefixes, BAT favorite [name] the [job], Phelpsian, and -licious.

The Least Likely to Succeed was PUMA (Party Unity My Ass). But in case the dialecticians have misunderestimated the Democrats, the runners-up are nuke the fridge, and -cation (as in BAT favorite staycation).

Dominating the new category of Election Related Words was maverick/mavericky. Then came poor, under-rated lipstick on a pig as well as the adorable hopey-changey and hockey mom.

And now let the challenges begin!