ARTISANAL, SUSTAINABLE, AND TWEE: Forget about perennials like moist and panties -- what were the worst words of 2012? (Warning: contains some political content, as well as reference to an alcohol intake practice about which I was previously unfamiliar.)
related: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz?
I vote "Les Mis."
ReplyDeleteAlso, if we do best words, I vote "vagenius," but I'm also going to submit it for this, because it's kind of both the best and worst word of 2012 for me.
There's no "z" in Les Miserables, so there.
ReplyDeleteI'm on board with the X thing going away. Also, Zs in place of S and the misspelling of "light".
ReplyDeleteThere are some awful words on this list, but more interesting may be the instances of perfectly good words that have fallen into awful usage. I love Nick Greene's comments on the presently prevailing use of "nostalgia", for example.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for Les Misérables, if you're writing -- not texting, writing -- I'd just splurge and go with "Les Misérables". I admit I get lazy with the accent mark on screen because I can never remember the keystroke. But "mis" or "miz" typed out just feels awkward. What does it cost you, really, to maintain the dignity of your document and the work under discussion? Seven keystrokes? And extra 2.2 seconds with your pencil? (If you're texting it seems you can sacrifice any number of characters and any rule of proper expression for speed, then blame it on fat thumbs and/or autocorrect if you confuse or offend anyone. I don't like this, and my interlocutors don't like my long, grammatically rigorous text messages, but I think "tolerance" is a proper watchword here.)
Have I been living under a rock all year? Most of these terms haven't made it into my lexicon, and I haven't bumped into them in magazines, newspapers or blog posts this year. Yes, I've heard baby bump, fiscal cliff and hipster, but brogrammer? Meggings? Selfies? YOLO?
ReplyDelete"Alcohol intake practice" - my alma mater, ladies and gents. Where students now literally can't tell their heads from their asses.
ReplyDelete"Actually" isn't a bad word in and of itself. It's just gotten overused and abused in the same way as "literally." I once had a friend say that "literally" now means "I really mean this; pay attention." I think a lot of people use "actually" to do the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI always thought it was for use when you're contradicting either an assumption or previously held fact. As in, "Before we used to have avatars on the blog, I though Watts was a dude, but actually Watts is a dudette."