Merriam-Webster Singles Out Nonbinary ‘They’ For Word Of The Year Honors

Speaker 1: 00:00 When linguists and dictionary writers come up with the word of the year, it's often something brand new to the lexicon from technology or the internet, but not always for 2019 the word and words of the year are familiar, but their meanings in 2019 may be surprising or even controversial. Midday edition cohost Jade Heineman spoke with Emily Brewster, senior editor of Miriam Webster about their 2019 words of the year. So how does Miriam Webster determine its words of the year? What's the process? Our process is entirely data driven. We look for a word that has been looked up significantly@marionwebster.com over the course of the year. And that has seen a dramatic increase in use in look-ups since the previous year. Hmm. Okay. So now that we know how the words of the year are decided on, let's reveal what this year's word of the year is. I'll let you do the honors. Marion Webster's word of the year for 2019 is the pronoun they. Speaker 1: 00:59 Mm. So how does Miriam Webster go about deciding to expand the definition of a word like they did with the word Bay? Yes. We added a new sense of day to our dictionary in September. That new sense is defined as used to refer to a single person whose gender identity is non-binary, but this increase in lookups that we saw that led us to determine that this was the word of the year only took into consideration evidence of lookups from before that announcement. And we entered this new definition of the word they because we have significant evidence of it being used and it has been used for about 20 years now. Right. Quid pro quo was the runner up to the word of the year. That was of course due to the impeachment of president Donald Trump. Here's Gordon Sana land, the U S ambassador to the European union. Was there a quid pro quo as I testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting? Speaker 1: 01:59 The answer is yes. So what does quid pro quo mean exactly and what do we know about its origin? It comes from the Latin phrase, meaning something for something. We define it as something given or received for something else or a deal arranging a quid pro quo. It was originally used to refer to something that you would obtain from apothecary when one medicine was substituted for another either accidentally or dishonestly. And then soon after it came to have a more general meaning of substitution. And one of the words in the top five was egregious. Uh, when did the lookups for that word surge? The lookups for agregious surged in October when reports surfaced that a Boeing pilot had used the word to describe an issue with those seven 37 max planes that had resulted in fatal crashes killing people in October, 2018 and March, 2019. And what exactly does egregious mean? Speaker 1: 02:53 It means conspicuously bad, but it used to mean a distinguished or eminent, it comes from a Latin word that means basically apart from the herd. So it used to be a positive thing, but no more. Number seven on the list was a word used by attorney general William Barr. In describing a letter he received from Mueller. In response to bar's summary of the special counsel's report, which has been referred to as the Mueller report. That word is snitty. Uh, what was William Barr saying about that letter from Mueller? William Barr used that word to characterize the letter that Mueller had sent, criticizing bar's own summary of the Mueller report and snitty spike to 150000%. It's a, it's a word that is not, not all that commonly looked up under other circumstances. And what exactly does it mean? It means disagreeable. Ill tempered. All right. The last word that made the top 10 list was exculpate searches for it spiked when special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into Russian interference into the U S election said this to the house of representatives in July. Speaker 2: 03:59 The fighting indicates that, uh, the president, uh, uh, was not, uh, the president was not as sculpting exculpated for the accident he allegedly committed. Speaker 1: 04:15 So what does exculpate mean in the way that Mueller used it there, it means to clear from alleged fault or guilt. And it comes from the Latin word culpa, meaning blame, which is also the source of our word culpable. So many of our words have come from this impeachment, uh, hearing. Uh, I've been speaking with Emily Brewster, senior editor at Miriam Webster. Emily, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. For the full list of this year's words of the year, visit kpbs.org.