word of the year

seanahan commented on the word word of the year

I propose that Wordie do a word of the year. John, can we do a poll somehow? Also, if enough people are interested, we could put the voting on the front page. We could also do things like comment of the year, thread of the year, list of the year, etc. Then, John could get a special gold star to add to the appropriate pages. Possibly silver, bronze, and nomination stars for others.

Suggestions for various categories and input on details on how this will work are appreciated. Eventually, we'd start a "X of the Year: 2007" page and take nominations. Some group of us, possibly the league of extrawordy gentlemen, possibly an independent group, possibly John if he wants to, can sift through the nominations and come up with 5 or so to be put onto the poll, which people can vote for at some point in December.

We should also get John's input to check if this poses any technical challenges on his end.

November 13, 2007

yarb commented on the word word of the year

There can only be one winner in any category, and that is raccoonnookkeeper. I have savoured it for as long as 12 hours straight.

November 13, 2007

john commented on the word word of the year

Oh, I love this idea. It's not too much work technically (I could whip something up, or use something embeddable like micropoll), but I should warn you I think I'll soon be time constrained: Looks like I'm starting a new job soon, details tba once they're finalized. I'll still be doing as much Wordie stuff as I can--I frickin' love working on Wordie, it would kill me to stop--but I'll have to slow down a bit.

I think the tough part of a Word of the Year selection process would be how to whittle the nominations down to a pollable number. Maybe tags could do the trick -- like anyone can nominate a word by tagging it woty07? And once there's a sufficient number of nominations perhaps the Coed League of Extrawordy Gentlemen could convene and select the finalists?

November 13, 2007

john commented on the word word of the year

Checking out the LoEG page reminds me--why in tarnation are haversack, waxed paper, epicaricacy, and a dozen other random words all tagged shirt? I mean, I love it, but I'm confused.

I feel like someone may have explained this before, sorry if I'm asking for a repeat.

November 13, 2007

reesetee commented on the word word of the year

I think that originally we meant to tag as t-shirt any word or phrase (or even conversation) that might be good merch, John. Don't know how it morphed into "shirt," though.

November 13, 2007

john commented on the word word of the year

Ah, of course--thanks reesetee. Hm, reminds me, need to think about merch again...

November 14, 2007

reesetee commented on the word word of the year

Hey, congratulations on the new job--or is it too soon to say that? Don't want to jinx it.

November 14, 2007

mollusque commented on the word word of the year

Should we vote in December, as seanahan or should we aim for Wordie's first birthday (November 25)? That would be a great day for a press release or blog release, but it might be a rush.

Should we have different categories of words of the year? I'd suggest at least two, a "real" word and a "madeupical" word. What about a worst word of the year?

November 14, 2007

seanahan commented on the word word of the year

I originally suggested that we tag things as shirt, since I don't think punctuation in tags is good.

November 14, 2007

seanahan commented on the word word of the year

If we can get the nominations together by November 25, that would be great. I think it will be hard to get everything together by then.

November 14, 2007

chained_bear commented on the word word of the year

I nominate madeupical and raccoonnookkeeper.

November 14, 2007

skipvia commented on the word word of the year

I think ensnorkelled should make the list.

November 14, 2007

chained_bear commented on the word word of the year

Oh yes, definitely!

Edit: Please see the list NOMINATIONS FOR 2007 WORDIE WORD OF THE YEAR.

Another Edit: Nevermind.

November 14, 2007

mollusque commented on the word word of the year

I thought we were supposed to use the tag woty07 for nominations. That way everyone can add to the list. Several words including madeupical are already so tagged.

November 14, 2007

chained_bear commented on the word word of the year

Oh. OK. I'm dense. Sorry!

November 14, 2007

uselessness commented on the word word of the year

Hmm, I have yet to contribute to this discussion. So I will now.

My first reaction was "heavens no, the s-word will just end up winning!" And then I realized that this is our noble chance to circumvent popular opinion and knock it off its pedestal. I'm in.

I agree that two categories (real and madeupical) would be great. Actually I think I might vote for madeupical itself... Where do we vote and who's the officiator?

November 14, 2007

chained_bear commented on the word word of the year

Well, I made a list, but then deleted it. Apparently we vote--or rather, nominate--by adding the tag woty07 to a word page. I have no idea how we vote or who tallies them. It seems like John is the likely person to officiate, but then he may demur.

November 14, 2007

uselessness commented on the word word of the year

But a word can only be given a particular tag once. That's great for nomination, but not so good for voting.

November 15, 2007

chained_bear commented on the word word of the year

Well, voting is why I made a list, thinking it would work better to have all the 2007 noms and votes in one place... It seems like what lists are for. *rethinks deleting list*

November 15, 2007

john commented on the word word of the year

I know it's not apparent from the interface, but a word can actually be given a tag multiple times, by different people. A tag that's been used more than other appears larger.

*rethinks whole tagging interface.*

November 15, 2007

seanahan commented on the word word of the year

Because we will form some sort of nominating committee, we don't have to worry about THAT WHICH WILL NOT BE SPOKEN winning. I envisioned us choosing only madeupical words (not really fair for me to use that here), but rare words that no one had chosen would also be useful.

So we have the tags

woty07 = word of the year 2007

toty07 = thread of the year 2007 (we'll include all threads at this point and figure out later what to do with multi-year threads)

loty07 = list of the year 2007

Other categories can possibly come in the future.

November 15, 2007

chained_bear commented on the word word of the year

I don't think I could possibly single out a list, or even a dozen lists, to be the top list(s) of the year. There are so many brilliant and interesting ones. Do you rate them for originality? Comprehensiveness? Cleverness? Length? Number of phonemes?

I'd be too concerned that I'd pick something I like now, or liked in the past couple of weeks, over something that utterly captivated me, say, eight months ago. Then it would end up being a popularity contest with the results basically skewed toward the more recent. It's like saying "The League of Extrawordy Gentlemen" (or "The Committee for Brilliance in Wordieness," or whatever) "hereby declares that this is the List of the Year, or actually of late November 2007, even though we're pretending it's for the whole year." You know, like the Oscars.

Choosing a word, just one, is about as much difficulty as I can stand outside of my job.

November 15, 2007

mollusque commented on the word word of the year

It's Germanic. It has some dozen letters. It has three syllables. Its meaning is not so elegantly expressed in English. Why do we shy away from the obvious? I think we should embrace the s-word. What could better capture the essence of Wordie than sprachgefuhl? As for the other s-word...gack. Overrated.

November 15, 2007

seanahan commented on the word word of the year

I understand what you're saying, there are so many good words and lists that it would be really hard to pick out the top ones, and some awesome stuff from 8 months ago would be left out. I'll have to think about this some more.

November 15, 2007

john commented on the word word of the year

One potential side effect of doing a WotY is that it would give us a big stock of good words (ie, all the runners-up) that could be used for a Wordie Word of the Day. I know, I know--everybody does this, and I don't want to be in the business of competing with Anu Garg and all the others. But Wordie is different. It would be a good way to seed the universe with particularly good madeupical words, ones that really should enter the vernacular.

November 15, 2007

whichbe commented on the word word of the year

I just randomed upon and re-read this thread. Good coincidence, as mere days ago I instigated the wordie word of the year 2008 and wordie list of the year 2008 suggestions (tagged woty08).

December 27, 2008