What do you think, in light of presidential debates and terrorist attacks, were some of the most often looked up words of 2015? Turns out people were getting pretty philosophical last year. Some of the most frequently researched words at the Merriam-Webster site were:
- Socialism
- Fascism
- Racism
- Feminism
- Communism
- Capitalism
- Terrorism
My first reaction when I read this list is was dismay. How sad that people don’t know a concept so integral to our society as capitalism.
But with further reflection, I realized these are complex, controversial terms that have changed over time. They deserve looking up. For example, “terrorism” comes from France’s Reign of Terror, so it originally meant tactics used by a government to terrorize its own people. Now, it most often refers to outsiders attacking a country. And if I’m going to be perfectly honest, before I wrote this post, I couldn’t give you a definition of “fascist”. When I heard “fascist”, I thought “Nazi”. Now I can tell you that fascism is a political philosophy that exalts nation or race over the individual.
Could you define, in a sentence or two, all the -isms above? Socialism is evolving – it used to be a close sister to communism, but now there’s a new term in political circles: democratic socialism, which suggests high governmental involvement to ensure an equal distribution of resources.
Complicated words, these isms. Also highly charged.
Emma Watson’s 2014 UN speech, which included the word “feminism”, inspired Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai to call herself a feminist in viral video released in 2015. Look-ups for feminism spiked when the public learned that Watson was told not to use the word “feminism” in her speech. FYI, feminism describes a belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. Um, why shouldn’t Watson use this term in front of the UN? Never mind, she did. Emma Watson rocks.
“Isms” were so popular in 2015 that Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is “-ism”. Fastidious word nerds know that -ism is a suffix, not a word, but, whatever.
Some other words with a high number of look-ups:
- Marriage- no doubt because of the same-sex marriage debate
- Hypocrite
- Respect
- Inspiration
- Minion- inspired by the Minion movie this summer and the funniest word on the list. When my youngest two sons banter, grumble, and giggle at flatulence, they remind me of those teeny, be-goggled yellow busybodies. The word means “follower”, but its origin comes from the French mignon for dainty or cute.
My favorite term from last year was bloviating megalomaniac. Whoops, that’s two words, but I heard them used to describe Donald Trump, and with him, one word just doesn’t cut it.
Another favorite: wexting. The Note To Self podcast used this term to describe the annoying phenomenon of people walking (usually in front of you, and slowly) while texting.
What was an interesting word you heard/ looked up/ started using in 2015? And, it’s time to come clean. Can you define all the words listed above, or would you benefit from some research as well?
Thanks for adding to the discussion.
Wexting…totally new to me! Good to know there’s a name for that. And for Donald Trump. 😝
Wexting – I could hurt myself doing that! I found the most common word lookups interesting, and they really do reflect the world we live in. We’ve had the socialism/communism discussion in our house, as my kids are curious about Bernie Sanders. I often have to look things up in order to answer their questions, but that just means they are asking thoughtful questions, right?