'Plutoed' is 2006 word of the year

The American Dialect Society has spoken

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 8th January 2007 13:54 GMT

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The American Dialect Society (ADS) has voted "plutoed" its 2006 word of the year. The verb, meaning " to demote or devalue someone or something", beat "climate canary" (an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on the horizon) in a run-off vote to secure the crown, although the latter did win the "most useful" word category.

Other contenders for the word of the year included "murse" (man’s purse), "flog" ("a blog that flacks product") and "YouTube" (verb meaning "to use the YouTube website or to have a video of one's self be posted on the site").

YouTube was, however, the runaway winner of the "Most Likely to Succeed" category.

Other delights on offer include the "Most Outrageous" laureate "Cambodian accessory", ie, "Angelina Jolie's adopted child who is Cambodian", "Fed-Ex" (nickname for K-Fed, a.k.a Kevin Federline, soon-to-be ex-husband of Britney Spears) and "macaca moment" ("an ethnic or racial gaffe caught on video").

The 2006 awards are the 17th announced by the 117-year-old ADS. The organisation includes "linguists, lexicographers, etymologists, grammarians, historians, researchers, writers, authors, editors, professors, university students, and independent scholars". ®

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