Words of the Year

[Slate]. The Linguistic Sociiety of America, mostly for fun, votes on "Word of the Year" in several nebulously defined categories. It bares pointing out that "Word" doesn't describe what they vote on, but "Lexical term" of the year lacked panache. The winners of 2005:

• Most Creative: pajamahadeen , refers to bloggers in their bedclothes who criticize the mainstream media ( ahem );
  
• Most Euphemistic: badly sourced , meaning "false", used by Colin Powell and others this year.
  
• Most Outrageous: santorum , coined by sex columnist Dan Savage, after Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, as "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex". As in, "Have you seen any santorum around the halls of Congress?".
  
• Most Likely to Succeed: red state, blue state, purple state . If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
  
• Overall: Word of the Year: red state, blue state, purple state .
  
  The conferences of the Linguistic Society of America sound like real cliffhangers.