Do you know which word or phrase has been picked up as the word of the year, 2018? The answer is ‘Tender-age shelter’. The American Dialect Society chose it as the word of the year at its annual conference held in New York City on 4 January, 2019.
The phrase ‘tender-age shelter’ is used to describe facilities to house babies and young children separated from their parents at the USA-Mexico border. The Society also named ‘The Wall’ as the ‘political word of the year’ referring to president Trump’s proposed wall along the US-Mexico border (it’s been built now).
At the conference, ‘techlash’ is named as the Digital word of the year 2018.
Words of the year in other categories are also named at the annual conference which are listed below :
WORD OF THE YEAR
Tender-age camp/shelter/facility: government detention center for children of asylum seekers.
POLITICAL WORD OF THE YEAR
(The) Wall: proposed barrier along the US/Mexico border to prevent illegal crossings.
DIGITAL WORD OF THE YEAR
Techlash: backlash against tech innovators.
SLANG/INFORMAL WORD OF THE YEAR
Yeet : indication of surprise or excitement.
Most Useful
Voldemorting: avoiding mention of unpleasant person or topic by using a replacement term
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
Single-use: to be used once and destroyed
MOST CREATIVE
White Caller Crime: white people calling police on black people for doing mundane things
EUPHEMISM OF THE YEAR
Racially Charged: circumlocution for “racist”
WTF WORD OF THE YEAR
Deleted Family Unit : bureaucratic term referring to asylum-seeking families whose children were removed
HASHTAG OF THE YEAR
#Nottheonion: reporting something true that seems like satire from The Onion
EMOJI OF THE YEAR
Thinking Face (indicating bemused pondering)
To note, in 2017, ‘fake news’ was the word of the year.
