"Surreal" Is The Shittiest Word Of The Year Of All Time
Merriam-Webster announced Monday that “surreal” is its top Word of the Year for 2016.
The American publishing company best known for its popular dictionaries said the decision was based on two simple criteria: The word has a “high volume of lookups” and a “significant year-over-year increase in lookups” on Merriam-Webster.com.
Peter Sokolowski, the editor at large for Merriam-Webster, told Yahoo News that these are the criteria, because many of the most looked-up words are actually the same every year.
I’m not usually one to shit on the dictionary. I love words. I’m a writer of words. I’m a speaker of words, and as a user of words for 34 years, I know good ass words when I see them. Surreal is an ok word by any measure. It’s not a cream-of-the-crop word. It’s not even a top-tier word.
Feels like the dictionary pussyfooted around some words that were obviously more fitting for 2016. Words like bigly, deplorable, *extremely donald trump voice* china, hombre, braggadocious, locker-room talk, redacted, email, pussy, grab-her-by, lock, her, up, orange, or even rigged/crooked. The dictionary went all Andy Reid on us and played prevent instead of sending blitzers. Unfortunate.
I remember a day and age when the dictionary wasn’t such a little bitch. I hope we can get back to the point where the dictionary touts strong words and not just regular words.