The English language well represents the tumultuous and tempestuous world of today.

 

Excellent Question, Will …

 

August 2017, Austin, TEXAS, and NEW YORK (Update) — The Global Language Monitor (GLM) today announced the Top Trending Words of the Year (#WOTY) for 2017 (Mid-year Update). The final Top Words of 2017 will be announced on November 16, 2017.  This is an update to the Top Trending Words of the Year that GLM produces several times as the yeat 2017 unfolds.

Truth continues as the Top Word of the Year, while Narrative continues in second place. Reflecting the rising alarm GLM first pointed to during the first presidential debates, Opioids made the leap from No. 10 to No.3. Of the next seven spots, all were new to the rankings with the exception of the Nuclear Option (Korea), which moved up two spots to No. 5. New words included Woke, Deep State, and Robot Apocalypse. Regarding ‘fake news,’ newly unmasked as an ethnic slur, the term was supplanted by the concept of a ‘higher level of fake news’ — a time-honored methodology of creating and planting ‘legitimate’ news stories. The most downward trending were Brexit falling eight spots to No. 12, and No. 3 #Resist most dramatically dropping from No. 3 to No. 19.

GLM also announced that the Global English Word of the Year for 2016 was not a word but a meme: the blood-soaked image of Omran Daqneesh, five years old, sitting in an ambulance while awaiting treatment in Allepo, Syria. (Click Here to see Top Global English Words of 2016.)

Covfefe, the Trumpian Typo heard ‘round the world, crossed GLM’s Triple Threshold to make the 2017 #WOTY list, with some 400,000+ media citations alone. 

“The amount of linguistic churn in this three-month span is interesting in the extreme.  In fact, the English language well represents the tumultuous and tempestuous world of today.” said Paul JJ Payack, President, and Chief Word Analyst of GLM. “If this churn persists for a significantly longer period of time, this will presage an unprecedented moment in its history. “

DRAWING IN A TIME OF FEAR & LIES • WEEKEND    Babblegate Is the New Watergate

 

 

 

Comparison with the earlier version continue below.

 

The Top Words, Phrases, and Names since the Turn of the Century

2016:
Top Words: No. 1 Truth, No. 2 Narrative, No. 3, #Resist
Top Phrases: No. 1 Make America Great Again No. 2 When they go low, we go high No. 3 The Electoral College
Top Names: No. 1 Donald Trump, No. 2 Vladimir Putin, No. 3 Neil Gorsuch

2015:
Top Words: No. 1 Microaggression
Top Phrases: No. 1 Migrant Crisis
Top Names: No. 1 Donald J. Trump

2014:
Top Words: No. 1 The Heart ♥ Emoji (for love) , No. 2 Hashtag , No. 3 Vape
Top Phrases: No. 1 Hands Up, Don’t Shoot; No. 2 Cosmic Inflation, No. 3 Global Warming
Top Names: No. 1 Ebola, No. 2 Pope Francis, No. 3 World War I

2013:
Top Words: No. 1 ’404’, No.2 Fail, No.3 Hashtag
Top Phrases: No. 1 Toxic Politics, No. 2 Federal Shutdown, No.3 Global Warming/Climate Change
Top Names: No. 1. Pope Francis, No. 2 ObamaCare, No.3 NSA

2012:
Top Words: No. 1 ApocalypseArmageddon, No.2 Deficit, No. 3 Olympiad
Top Phrases: No. 1 Gangnam Style, No. 2 Climate Change/Global Warming, No. 3 Fiscal Cliff
Top Names: No. 1 Newtown and Malala Yousafzai, No. 3 Xi Jinping

2011:
Top Words: No. 1 Occupy, No.2 Fracking, No.3 Drone
Top Phrases: No. 1 Arab Spring, No. 2 Royal Wedding, No.3 Anger and Rage
Top Names: No. 1 Steve Jobs, No. 2 Osama bin-laden and Seal Team Six, No.3 Fukushima

2010:
Top Words: No. 1 Occupy, No.2 Fracking, No.3 Drone
Top Phrases: No. 1 Anger and Rage, No. 2 Climate Change, No. 3 The Great Recession
Top Names: No. 1 Hu Jintao, paramount leader of China, No. 2 iPad, No. 3 Barack Obama

2009:
Top Words: No. 1 Twitter, No. 2 Obama-, No. 3 H1N1
Top Phrases: No. 1 King of Pop, No. 2 Obama-mania, No. 3 Climate Change
Top Names: No. 1 Obama, No. 2 Michael Jackson, No. 3 Mobama

2008:
Top Words: No. 1 Change, No. 2 Bailout, No. 3 Obama-mania
Top Phrases: No. 1 Financial Tsunami, No. 2 Global Warming, No. 3 “Yes, We Can!”
Top Names: No. 1 Barack Obama, No. 2 George W. Bush, No.3 Michael Phelps

2007:
Top Words: No. 1 Hybrid (representing all things green), No. 2: Surge
Top Phrase: Climate Change
Top Name: Al Gore

2006:
Top Word: Sustainable
Top Phrase: Stay the Course
Top Name: Dafur

2005:
Top Words: No. 1, Refugee No. 2: Tsunami No. 3: Katrina
Top Phrase: Outside the Mainstream
Top Name: (acts of ) God

2004:
Top Word: Incivility (for inCivil War)
Top Phrase: Red States/Blue States No. 2: Rush to War
Top Name: Dubya/Rove

2003:
Top Word: Embedded
Top Phrase: Shock and Awe, No. 2: Rush to War
Top Name: Saddam Hussein, No. 2 Dubya

2002:
Top Word: Misunderestimate
Top Phrase: Threat Fatigue
Top Name: W (Dubya)

2001:
Top Word: Ground Zero
Top Phrase: ‘Lets Roll’
Top Name: The Heros

2000:
Top Word: Chad
Top Phrase: Dot.com
Top Name: W (Dubya)

Methodology:  The words are culled from throughout the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.83 billion speakers (January 2013 estimate) GLM employs its NarrativeTracker technologies for global Internet and social media analysis. NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic, at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the top 300,000 print and electronic global media, as well as new social media sources as they emerge.

For More Information, go to LanguageMonitor.com or call 1.512.801.6823.