We Are Sorry, Sir, But You Have Been Plutoed

I simply cannot wait until I hear that phrase spoken at an airport. The American Dialect Society has decreed the word "plutoed" to be its Word of the Year. They are the same folks who enshrined "truthiness" last year, so they must be right, right?

"Plutoed" was chosen 2006's Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society at its annual meeting Friday.

To "pluto" is "to demote or devalue someone or something," much like what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn't meet its definition of a planet.

"Our members believe the great emotional reaction of the public to the demotion of Pluto shows the importance of Pluto as a name," said society president Cleveland Evans. "We may no longer believe in the Roman god Pluto, but we still have a sense of personal connection with the former planet."

"Plutoed" won in a runoff against "climate canary," defined as "an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on the horizon."

Now last year, I saw the word "truthiness" used a number of times during the year leading up to it being declared the Word of the Year. I can honestly say I have never before seen "plutoed" or "climate canary" ever in print before reading this article. Perhaps that is a sign of the American Dialect Society's impending "plutoing" after a warning from the "irrelevance canary". Or maybe that's just me being snarky.

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1. The Moderate Voice » Blog Archive » Around The Sphere January 8, 2007 — Monday, 8 January , 2007 @ 7:23 am