The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is a learned society A learned society is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline or group of disciplines. Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honor conferred by election, as is the case with the oldest learned societies, such as the Polish Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana , the Italian "dedicated to the study of the English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of in North America North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific Ocean; South America lies to the southeast, and of other languages Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. By extension the term also refers to the type of human thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of, or dialects The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class. A dialect that is associated of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it."[1] The Society publishes the academic journal, American Speech. Since its foundation, dialectologists in English-speaking North America have affiliated themselves with the American Dialect Society, an association which in its first constitution defined its objective as "the investigation of the spoken English of the United States and Canada" (Constitution, 1890). Over the years its objective remained essentially the same, only expanded to encompass "the English language in North America, together with other languages or dialects of other languages influencing it or influenced by it" (Fundamentals, 1991).[2]

The organization was founded as part of a near century-long effort to create the Dictionary of American Regional English The Dictionary of American Regional English is a record of American English as spoken in the United States, from its beginning up to the present. It differs from other dictionaries in that it does not record the standard language used throughout the country; instead, it contains regional and folk speech, those words, phrases, and pronunciations.[1] In 1889, when Joseph Wright began editing the English Dialect Dictionary, a group of American philologists founded the American Dialect Society with the ultimate purpose of producing a similar work for the United States. Members of the Society began to collect material, much of which was published in the Society's journal Dialect Notes, but little was done toward compiling a dictionary recording nationwide usage until Frederic G. Cassidy was appointed Chief Editor in 1963.[3] The first volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, covering the letters A-C, was published in 1985.[1] The other major project of the Society is the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada.[2]

The Society has never had more than a few hundred active members. With so few scholars advancing the enterprise, the developments in the field came slowly.[2] Members of the organization include "linguists, lexicographers, etymologists, grammarians, historians, researchers, writers, authors, editors, professors, university students, and independent scholars."[4]

Its activities include a mailing list,[5] which deals chiefly with American English but also carries some discussion of other issues of linguistic interest.[6]

Word of the Year

Since 1991, the American Dialect Society has designated one or more words or terms to be the word of the year. The New York Times The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. Although it remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States as well as third largest overall behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, the weekday circulation of the paper has fallen precipitously in credits the American Dialect Society with starting the phenomenon.[7] 2007 was the 18th time ADS members have voted to choose it, though the society says its vote is for fun only and that they do not act in any official capacity of introducing words into the English language.

In addition, the ADS has chosen its "Word of the 1990s" (web The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW and commonly known as the Web, is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them by using hyperlinks. Using concepts from earlier hypertext systems, British), "Word of the 20th Century" (jazz The origin of the word jazz is one of the most sought-after word origins in modern American English. The word's intrinsic interest — the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century — has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well-documented. As discussed in more detail below, jazz began as a West Coast), and "Word of the Past Millennium" (she She is a third-person, singular personal pronoun (subject case) in Modern English. In 1999, the American Dialect Society chose "she" as the word of the past millennium). The society also selects words in other categories that vary from year to year, such as most original, most unnecessary, most outrageous and most likely to succeed (see word of the year).

A number of words chosen by the ADS are also on the list of Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year.

The ADS choices of word of the year are the following:

References

  1. ^ a b c Flexner, Stuart B. "ONE LANGUAGE, HIGHLY DIVISIBLE"", The New York Times The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. Although it remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States as well as third largest overall behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, the weekday circulation of the paper has fallen precipitously in, December 15, 1985. Accessed February 19, 2008. "THE DARE project began in 1889, when a group of American philologists founded the American Dialect Society to sponsor and gather material for an American dialect dictionary."
  2. ^ a b c Sylvain Auroux, History of the Language Sciences, Page 2366, Walter de Gruyter, 2006, ISBN 3110167360
  3. ^ Hall, Joan Houston. "The Dictionary of American Regional English." Language in the USA: Perspectives for the 21st Century. Eds. Edward Finegan, John Rickford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted Letters Patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest continually operating book publisher, 2004. p. 94–95.
  4. ^ a b “Subprime” voted 2007 word of the year, American Dialect Society, January 4, 2008. Accessed February 19, 2008.
  5. ^ description of the ADS-L mailing list
  6. ^ E.g., this letter from 2003, in which a longtime member assures another that discussion of Canadian English is welcome despite the organization's name and official self-description: "But as others have pointed out, we're the American [Dialect Society] not the [American Dialect] Society. So in principle even non-NAFTA dialects are fair game as well."
  7. ^ a b Newman, Andrew Adam. "How Dictionaries Define Publicity: the Word of the Year", The New York Times The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. Although it remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States as well as third largest overall behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, the weekday circulation of the paper has fallen precipitously in, December 10, 2007. Accessed February 19, 2008. "The word-of-the-year ritual probably started with the American Dialect Society, a scholarly association whose Web site lists yearly picks as far back as 1990. This year the society will vote in January; its 2006 selection was “plutoed,” which means “to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto.”"
  8. ^ Ritter, Jim. "1995's Word Of the Year: Either `Web' - Or `Newt'", Chicago Sun-Times The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group, December 31, 1995. Accessed February 21, 2008. " The American Dialect Society selected the 1995 word or phrase of the year Friday night, and it was a tie between Worldwide Web and a bunch of words referring to House Speaker Newt Gingrich - Newt Age, Newt Dealer, Newt World Order, Newtopia, Newtron bomb, Newtspeak, Newtworking, femiNewtie and King Newt."
  9. ^ 1995 Words of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 13, 1996. Accessed February 21, 2008.
  10. ^ via Associated press The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to. "LINGUISTS PICK `SOCCER MOM' AS 1996'S WORD", The Philadelphia Inquirer The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the United States. Owned by the local group, January 5, 1997. Accessed February 21, 2008. "Soccer mom was voted Word of the Year for 1996 by the American Dialect Society."
  11. ^ 1996 Words of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 13, 1997. Accessed February 21, 2008.
  12. ^ Smith, Sheron. "WORD! `MILLENNIUM BUG' IS PICKED AS TOP PHRASE OF 1997", The Macon Telegraph, January 10, 1998. Accessed February 21, 2008. "The word of the year for 1997 is ... ``Millennium bug. That's right. The word, actually a phrase, describing the feared inability of computers to properly recognize the year 2000, came out on top Friday in the eighth annual ``Word of the Year balloting in New York City."
  13. ^ 1997 Words of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 13, 1998. Accessed February 21, 2008.
  14. ^ Gallentine, Shana. "1998: Our society defined in just a few short words", The Red and Black, January 21, 1999. Accessed February 21, 2008. "The two, along with linguists from all over the country, voted for the word of the year at the American Dialect Society's annual meeting in Los Angeles last week. And what word did the society pick? 'E,' Burkette said. 'Electronic, as in e-mail, e-text, e-commerce. It actually won in a couple of categories, including most useful and most likely to be used later.'"
  15. ^ 1998 Words of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 13, 1999. Accessed February 21, 2008.
  16. ^ Freeman, Jan. "STEAL THIS COINAGE", The Boston Globe The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993. Its chief print rival is the Boston Herald. In 2009-2010 the Globe's average weekday circulation fell to 232,432, down from 302,638, or 23.2%. Sunday circulation fell 18.8% to 378,949, June 18, 2000. Accessed February 21, 2008. "The American Dialect Society named Y2K its word of the year for 1999, dot-com most likely to succeed, and cybersquat most original, while web, as in World Wide, was the word of the decade."
  17. ^ "1999 Words of the Year, Word of the 1990s, Word of the 20th Century, Word of the Millennium", American Dialect Society, January 13, 2000. Accessed February 21, 2008.
  18. ^ Kershner, Vlae. "Help us choose the 'Word of the Year' ", San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Chronicle is Northern California's largest newspaper, and one of the largest in the United States, serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California, from the Sacramento area and Emerald Triangle south to San Luis Obispo County. It was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic, December 11, 2002. Accessed February 19, 2008. "In 2000, the word of the year (as chosen by the American Dialect Society) was "chad," a reminder of that year's bizarre presidential election."
  19. ^ 2000 Words of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 13, 2001. Accessed February 19, 2008.
  20. ^ Scott, Janny. "A NATION CHALLENGED: LANGUAGE; Words of 9/11 Go From Coffee Shops To the Dictionaries", The New York Times The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. Although it remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States as well as third largest overall behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, the weekday circulation of the paper has fallen precipitously in, February 24, 2002. Accessed February 19, 2008. "When the American Dialect Society, a group of scholars who study American English, recently held its annual voting on the top new, or newly reconditioned, words of the previous year, 9/11 was voted the expression most likely to last."
  21. ^ 2001 Words of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 13, 2002. Accessed February 19, 2008.
  22. ^ "'W.M.D.' voted word of year", USA Today USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the paper, January 6, 2003. Accessed February 19, 2008. "A long-winded phrase whose meaning reflects a nation's worry about war with Iraq has been voted 2002's word of the year. The American Dialect Society selected "weapons of mass destruction" as its annual choice at a meeting in Atlanta."
  23. ^ 2002 Words of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 13, 2003. Accessed February 19, 2008.
  24. ^ Newman, Andrew Adam. "In Time of Studied Ambiguity, a Label for the Manly Man", The New York Times The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. Although it remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States as well as third largest overall behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, the weekday circulation of the paper has fallen precipitously in, October 10, 2005. Accessed February 19, 2008. "The word of the year for 2003 for both the American Dialect Society and Merriam-Webster: metrosexual."
  25. ^ 2003 Words of the Year, American dialect Society, January 13, 2004. Accessed February 19, 2008.
  26. ^ via Associated Press The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to. "Linguists' phrase of the year: "Red state, blue state, purple state"", The Seattle Times The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, USA. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. Since the 2009 demise of the printed version of rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, it is the area's only major daily print newspaper, January 10, 2005. Accessed February 19, 2008. "A panel of linguists has deemed "red state, blue state, purple state" the phrase that most colored the nation's lexicon in 2004. Attendees at the annual convention of the Linguistic Society of America on Friday chose the word or phrase that dominated national discourse over the course of the last year."
  27. ^ 2004 Word of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 7, 2005. Accessed February 19, 2008.
  28. ^ Nash, Margo. "Jersey Footlights", The New York Times The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. Although it remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States as well as third largest overall behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, the weekday circulation of the paper has fallen precipitously in, April 9, 2006. Accessed February 19, 2008. "(And he's not bad at launching unusual words like truthiness. In an interview last year, Mr. Colbert said, Truthiness is sort of what you want to be true, as opposed to what the facts support. Earlier this year, the American Dialect Society cited Mr. Colbert for popularizing truthiness, the society's 2005 word of the year)."
  29. ^ Truthiness Voted 2005 Word of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 6, 2006. Accessed February 8, 2008.
  30. ^ “Plutoed” Voted 2006 Word of the Year, American Dialect Society, January 5, 2007. Accessed February 19, 2008.
  31. ^ Mullen, Jim. "LOL - Subprime is delighted to be word of the year", Chicago Sun-Times The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group, January 23, 2008. Accessed February 19, 2008.

External links

Categories: Linguistic societies

 

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