THE WORD OF THE YEAR: “IDENTITY”

Dictionary.com has selected its Word of the Year for 2015: “identity”. Liz McMillan, CEO of Dictionary.com, said there is a growing interest in words related to identity, as people encountered new terms throughout the year based on events tied to gender, sexuality, race, and other key issues. “The trends that we saw linguistically all point to a larger shift in the way society thinks about identity as being more fluid, which was evidenced by the increase in related events and news headlines,” McMillan said. For example:
– Miley Cyrus declared herself pansexual (* PANDERINGsexual, more like).
– Caitlyn Jenner kindled discussions of transgender identity among those who sympathized with the Olympian’s road to finding herself as well as some who looked askance at her transition.
– The Black Lives Matter movement rallied to shine a light on African-Americans killed during encounters with law enforcement throughout the year and emphasize the value of lives protestors say are being treated cheaply.
– Rachel Dolezal, a woman who was born white but identifies as black, tested the boundaries of racial identity after being called out.
– The Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same sex marriage had a transformative effect on definitions of marriage.
* I might have gone with the word “trump”, but whatever.
* Frankly, they lost me when they brought up Miley Cyrus.
* Pansexual. She’ll hump anything, even a frying pan.
* I’d ask if she realizes “pansexual” includes animals, but I don’t want to know.
* 2015? Nah, I mark the beginning of the identity revolution from when Prince changed his name to a symbol nobody could pronounce.
* Based on all these terrorist incidents, maybe the word of the year is “Blowback.”
* One word you hear a lot of these days is “radicalized.”
* I don’t know if we radicalized the people over there but we sure antagonized them.
* Hey, you can say whatever identity you want, but at some point, you are what you is.
* Next up: Thesaurus.com announces its Synonym of the Year.