Word of the year? 'Occupy' is front-runner

The American Dialect Society, which will announce its 20th annual Word of the Year on Jan. 5, found itself just one in a crowd of word obsessives this year as a formerly obscure venture went mainstream, or at least social media-stream.

Words -- everyone's texting and hashtagging them.

"I see a social-media effect in terms of interest in talking about word of the year," said Ben Zimmer, editor of the Visual Thesaurus and head of the Dialect Society's New Words committee. "It's something that people latch on to."

"Occupy" appears to be the consensus choice for Word of the Year 2011.

"When you look at something like 'occupy' as the front-runner, its success is its ability to be modulated, to fit in different environments. Twitter allows for it to spread quickly, boiling down a complex word or movement."

Zimmer noted that "occupy" had "talismanic" power and spread to cities around the globe and even to Sesame Street.

"They put something out in the world and it worked," Zimmer said. "It was clear that the word 'occupy' had started to develop in all these unforeseen directions . . . The key to a successful new word or phrase is that adaptability to different environments."

ONE OF THESE MIGHT BE THE WORD OF THE YEAR

Other words of 2011, as suggested by the Dialect Society, are:

ARAB SPRING The series of protests in the Arab world that led Time magazine to name "the protester" its person of the year.

HUMBLEBRAG This phenomenon refers to the brag disguised as self-deprecation.

TWINKLING Zimmer says this is "a term for the wiggly hand signals that the Occupiers use to register approval or disapproval."

TEBOWING The Tim Tebow phenomenon -- a man of faith (and Denver Broncos quarterback) finding a way to pull out football games in the clutch, followed by a one-knee homage to the Lord.

PLANKING Lying face down in an incongruous position, having your photograph taken, and posting the photo on the Internet.