Words of the Year

By Sarah Cocchimiglio
PROFIT Communications PR Assistant-Writer/Editor

Words.
We couldn’t live without them. As public relations professionals, we couldn’t do our jobs without them. In fact, there aren’t many jobs where words aren’t exchanged, be it in a meeting, an e-mail, a report.

Did you know that one word was chosen to represent the year 2010 in the history books? The American Dialect Association decided last month that the Word of the Year should be “app.” As in, “There’s an app for that.”

“App” had some steep competition. According the Philadelphia Inquirer, the folks at Merriam-Webster thought it should be “austerity,” the quality or state of being austere, or enforced or extreme economy, which was searched more than 250,000 times last year.

Facebook’s word of the year wasn’t even a word. “HMU”, a tech-speak acronym for “hit me up,” or “I’m available, call/text/e-mail/Skype me.”

How will the wordsmiths sum up this year? Although there is still much of 2011 to go, chances are good it will have something to do with either the economy or the environment, with politics or social networks, with pop culture or international conflict.

Maybe Sarah Palin, who coined the portmanteau “refudiate” (refute + repudiate) will put forth another brilliant word mashup, like cross-hairdresser or politickle. (She’s making fun, don’tcha know.)

With Academy Award-nominated flicks, like True Grit, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right and The King’s Speech, perhaps the word will be more like “authentic?” Or in the true fanatical spirit of Philadelphia, let’s hope the word of the year will be “champions,” because one of our sports teams makes it to the Promised Land. (Go Phils - pitchers and catchers report this week!)

Does Apple have another iSomethingOrOther in the works? “App”arently, the tech giant has a major sphere of influence as far as gadgets go, noting the unparalleled success of its iPod, iPhone and iPad products.

Or will the brewing situation in Egypt and the Middle East stay on the front page long enough for “revolution” to be a word-of-the-year candidate?

Do you think the word for 2010 was “app”ropriate? We know it’s early, but what terms do you think will be in the running for Word of the Year 2011? Share your thoughts and be sure to check back next January to see if you were close!