Truthiness - surprise winner of the 2006 wordlist
truthiness (noun)
1 : “truth that comes from the gut, not books” (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” October 2005)
2 : “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (American Dialect Society, January 2006)
2 : “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (American Dialect Society, January 2006)
The word list this year says something about this year filled with terrorism, and the American invasion of Iraq. Looking at the top 10 one can deduce the negative sentiment in the American public. The top 10 list as published by merriam webster is as follows:
- Truthiness
- decider
- war
- insurgent
- terrorism
- vendetta
- sectarian
- quagmire
- corruption
Suprsingly two words in there have found there place in the top 10 earlier. The word insurgent was popular in 2004 and the word Quagmire a year before that. Atleast one of the words interestingly found in place after the movie V for Vendetta. But then again it found surprising usage in the political spectrum as well.