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Merriam-Webster’s dictionary crew sums up 2016: surreal
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NEW YORK — Was 2016
a dream or a nightmare?
Try something in between:
“surreal,” which is Merri-
am-Webster’s word of the
year, unveiled Monday.
Meaning “marked by the
intense irrational reality of
a dream,” or “unbelievable,
fantastic,” the word joins
Oxford’s “post-truth” and
Dictionary.com’s “xenopho-
bia” as the year’s top choices.
“It just seems like one
of those years,” said Peter
Sokolowski, Merriam-Web-
ster’s editor at large.
The company tracks year-
over-year growth and spikes
in lookups of words on its
website to come up with the
top choice. This time around,
there were many periods of
interest in “surreal” throughout
the year, often in the aftermath
of tragedy, Sokolowski said.
Major spikes came after
the Brussels attack in March
and again in July, after the
Bastille Day massacre in
Nice and the attempted coup
in Turkey. All three received
huge attention around the
globe and had many in the
media reaching for “surreal”
to describe both the physical
scenes and the “mental land-
scapes,” Sokolowski said.
The single biggest spike in
lookups came in November,
he said, specifically Nov. 9,
the day Donald Trump went
from candidate to presi-
dent-elect.
There were also smaller
spikes, including after the
death of Prince in April at age
57 and after the June shoot-
ings at the Pulse nightclub in
Orlando, Florida.
Irony mixed with the
surreal for yet another bump
after the March death of
Garry Shandling. His first sit-
com, “It’s Garry Shandling’s
Show,” premiered on Show-
time in 1986 and had him
busting through the fourth
wall, speaking directly to the
audience and mimicking his
AP PHOTO/BEBETO MATTHEWS
“Surreal” is Merriam-Webster’s word of 2016 based on spikes
in lookups.
real life as a standup comedi-
an, but one who knew he was
starring in a TV show.
“It was surreal and it’s
connected to the actual origi-
nal meaning of surreal, which
is to say it comes from Surre-
alism, the artistic movement
of the early 20th century,”
Sokolowski said.
Which is to say that “surre-
al” didn’t exist as a word until
around 1924, after a group
of European poets, painters
and filmmakers founded a
movement they called Surre-
alism. They sought to access
the truths of the unconscious
mind by breaking down ratio-
nal thought.
It wasn’t until 1937 that
“surreal” began to exist on its
own, said Sokolowski, who is
a lexicographer.
Merriam-Webster first
started tracking lookup trends
in 1996, when the dictio-
nary landed online. In 2001,
after the 9/11 terror attacks,
the Springfield, Massachu-
setts-based company noticed
plenty of spikes in word look-
ups. The most enduring spike
was for “surreal,” pointing to
a broader meaning and greater
usage, Sokolowski said.
“We noticed the same
thing after the Newtown
shootings, after the Boston
Marathon bombings, after
Robin Williams’ suicide,” he
said. “Surreal has become this
sort of word that people seek
in moments of great shock
and tragedy.”
Word folk like Sokolowski
can’t pinpoint exactly why
people look words up online,
but they know it’s not only to
check spellings or definitions.
Right after 9/11, words that
included “rubble” and “tri-
age” spiked, he said. A couple
days after that, more political
words took over in relation to
the tragedy, including “jingo-
ism” and “terrorism.”
“But then we finally hit
‘surreal,’ so we had a concrete
response, a political response
and finally a philosophical
response,” Sokolowski said.
“That’s what connects all
these tragic events.”
Other words that made
Merriam-Webster’s Top 10
for 2016 due to significant
spikes in lookups:
BIGLY: Yes, it’s a word
but a rare and sometimes
archaic form of “big,” dating
to around 1400, Sokolowski
said. It made its way into the
collective mind thanks to
Trump, who was fond of us-
ing “big league” as an adverb
but making it sound like bigly.
DEPLORABLE: Thank
you, Hillary Clinton and your
basket full of, though it’s not
technically a noun.
IRREGARDLESS: It’s
considered a “nonstandard”
word for regardless. It’s best
avoided, Sokolowski said.
Irregardless was used during
the calling of the last game of
the World Series and its use
was pilloried on social media,
he said.
ICON: This spike came
after Prince’s April 21 death,
along with surreal. “It was
just a moment of public
mourning, the likes of which
really happen very seldom,”
Sokolowski said.
ASSUMPSIT: At the
Democratic National Conven-
tion, Elizabeth Warren was
introduced by one her former
law students at Harvard, Rep.
Joseph P. Kennedy III of Mas-
sachusetts. He described how
on his first day she asked him
for the definition of assumpsit
and he didn’t know.
“She said, ‘Mr. Kennedy
do you own a dictionary?’
so everybody looked it up,”
Sokolowski laughed.
For the record: It’s a legal
term with Latin roots for a
type of implied promise or
contract. Kennedy didn’t de-
fine it when he told the story.
FAUTE DE MIEUX:
Literally, this French phrase
means “lack of something
better or more desirable.”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg used it in a
brief concurring opinion in
June to support a ruling that
struck down a Texas law that
would have closed all but nine
abortion clinics in the state.
IN OMNIA PARATUS:
A Latin phrase for “ready for
all things.” Curiosity surfaced
when Netflix revived “Gilm-
ore Girls” recently, including
reference to this famous
chant during an episode in the
original series where Rory
is talked into leaping off a
high platform as part of the
initiation for a secret society
at Yale. It became a rallying
cry for fans of the show.
REVENANT: Leonar-
do DiCaprio played one in
a movie of the same name,
sending people scurrying to
the dictionary. It describes
“one that returns after death
or a long absence.” It can be
traced to the 1820s and while
it sounds biblical, it is not,
Sokolowski said.
FECKLESS: It’s how
Vice President-elect Mike
Pence described President
Obama’s foreign policy when
he debated Democrat Tim
Kaine. It means weak or
worthless.
Online: http://bit.ly/2hMpVto