Has one Word stood out for you among billion billion others this past decade?

Heavens… which would I have picked? The American Dialect Society* picks T H E Y: a gender neutral pronoun.

The ADS* has been compiling Words of the Year, the past 30 years; Chairperson, Ben Zimmer: ‘When a basic part of speech like the pronoun becomes a vital indicator of social trends, linguists pay attention.‘ ‘The selection of “(my) pronouns” as Word of the Year speaks to how the personal expression of gender identity has become an increasing part of our shared discourse.’

The title happened after singer Sam Smith announced in Sept. 2019 that they were changing their pronouns to ‘they/them’.

Other words in the running for the 2019 Word of the Year title included ‘cancel’ and ‘OK boomer’, whereas ‘#BlackLivesMatter’, ‘#MeToo’, ‘meme’, ‘woke’, ‘Climate’, ‘Cancel‘ and ‘emoji’ were all on the shortlist for Word of the Decade.

The Word of the Year can be any ‘vocabulary item’, word or phrase, which has been prominent for the past 12 months. The organisation made up of linguists, lexicographers, grammarians, historians and students, also crowned winners for other word categories….

What’s your Word of the Decade?

The American Dialect Society began choosing Word of the Year since the year 1991 and has picked only two ‘Word of the decade’ winners- ‘web’ for the 1990s decade and ‘Google’ for 2000s.

In the past few years, social media has played an increasing role in popularizing certain words and phrases such as ‘fake news’ in 2017.

MOST POPULAR WORDS OF THE DECADE

1. Don’t make me Unfriend you.
2. “Intexticated,” or being so infatuated with sending text messages as to type away while engaged in tasks that require the user’s full attention (e.g. operating a vehicle, attending classes, giving birth).
3. “Global warming” was chosen as the most prominent term of our century, followed by “9/11,” “Obama,” and “bailout.”
4. “War on Terror” (2001), “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (2003), “bin Laden” (2003), and “Taliban.”
5. “Ponzi Scheme” (2009), “same-sex marriage” (2003), “Katrina” (2004), and “iPhone” (2007)…..

If I were to pick one for the coming decade, it would be this one : G R A C E

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