Learn a new word; Word of the year finalists, ranked

Earlier this week the good folks over at Oxford Dictionaries released their pick for 'Word of the Year' for 2016, and they went with 'post-truth', an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."

Seems like a fitting choice for the current social and political climate, where it seems that how you say something has become more important that what you are actually saying. You can read more about 'post-truth' and the reasons why Oxford tapped it as the 'Word of the Year' over at their site.

There were nine other words that qualified as finalists for Oxford's Word of the Year for 2016 and taken together they paint a picture of a not-so-great year overall. 

But as Fitzgerald suggested many years back, we beat on, boats against the current and all that...

So let's end the week with some fun, and rank the Oxford Word of the Year finalists, and crown our own Word of the Year.

As a reminder, these rankings are unscientific, unresearched, subjective, and 100% accurate.

Here goes:

Here are the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year shortlist choices, definitions, and my revised rankings:

10. alt-right, n. (in the US) an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content. Find out more about the word's rise.

9. Brexiteer, n. British informal a person who is in favour of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union.

8. post-truth, adj. relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief 

7. glass cliff,  n. used with reference to a situation in which a woman or member of a minority group ascends to a leadership position in challenging circumstances where the risk of failure is high.

6. Latinx, n. (plural Latinxs or same) and adj. a person of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina); relating to people of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina).

5. hygge, n. [mass noun] a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture):

4. woke, adj. (woker, wokest) US informal alert to injustice in society, especially racism.

3. chatbot, n. a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.

2. adulting, n. [mass noun] informal the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult,especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.

1. coulrophobia, n. [mass noun] rare extreme or irrational fear of clowns.

I have always been a little leery of clowns.

Of course, you can disagree with these rankings, but as it turns out, you would be wrong.

That's it from me - have a great weekend!

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