The American Dialect Society annually puts their heads together in an attempt to come up with the Word of The Year.
As you can imagine after the year we’ve just had, it is certainly no mean feat to come up with a word that encompasses the year 2016.
2016 certainly seems like a tough year to sum up in one word. The nominations included “unpresidented”, a term which was coined by Trump during the presidential race. Others included “Fam”, “Harambe” and “facticide”.
The winner that fought off all contenders was a word that, bizarrely, none of us have ever heard of before; “Dumpster Fire”. According to the American Dialect Society, the definition is “an exceedingly disastrous or chaotic situation”. As it happens, it most certainly sounds like a good definition of the year 2016!
Previous winners of Word Of The Year range from “they” in 2015 which rose to prominence as people sought out different ways to define themselves outside the constraints of gender. 2014 saw #BlackLivesMatter become the word or rather phrase of the year, which continues to be relevant two years on.