Word of the Year

As we stumble to the end of another year, the first of a new decade, it’s time for the annual round of Word of the Year lists.

There are many floating around, but I like this one from the New York Times as the words are organised into handy categories, from the economy to pop culture to the more generic ‘things’.

‘Thing’ being my word of the year every year (it has so many uses), here’s an excerpt from that category:

double rainbow: A phrase from the hugely popular YouTube video by Paul Vasquez, featuring his breathless amazement at the sight of two rainbows at Yosemite National Park. It spawned parodies, television commercials, dance mixes, Auto-Tune versions, parties and Halloween costumes, and is now used to refer — ironically and not — to something amazing.

E.V.: An electric vehicle. While the term has been around for decades, there are now more cars like the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt, which makes it more than an environmentalist’s pipeless dream.

Let’s hope for more awesome/useless new words in 2011!