2007/11/13

2007 Word(s) of the Year

Oxford Universty Press has chosen its word of the year, and it's a good one, I think. It's locavore, a person who chooses to have a smaller negative impact on the environment by obtaining the food for themselves and their families as close to home as possible. Generally, that "close to home as possible" is defined as a 100 mile radius, but depending where the locavore lives, sometimes it's a smaller circle, sometimes it's bigger. As a word and a movement, I think locavore has staying power.

I can't say the same thing for the word of the year chosen by Webster's New World Dictionary. It's environmental too, but Grass Station? That's a new one on me, so good thing they included a definition in their press release: "a theoretical fill-up spot in the not-too-distant future; it reflects America's growing love affair with hybrid cars and vegetable-based fuels (and words), including ethanol and biomass fuels -- some of which really are distilled from plain old grass". Uh-huh. It's an interesting turn of a phrase, but I can't see it becoming a part of many people's working vocabulary. (By the way, Webster's New World Dictionary is not Merriam-Webster, for those of us who believe that dictionaries, like news sources, come with different levels of esteem.)

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