Webster’s (and Webster’s) 2006 Word of the Year

As I mentioned in my post Vote for 2006 Word of the Year at Webster’s, you could vote for a word at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary site.

The winner is truthiness, as used by American Steven Colbert on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report to mean preferring things that feel true to known facts. It beat out the verb google.

Previous years’ winners (chosen by frequency of online search, not vote): integrity, blog, democracy.

Truthiness was also voted 2005 Word of the Year by the members of the American Dialect Society last January.

Previous years’ winners: red state, blue state, purple state (American Republican, Democrat, and mixed regions); metrosexual (heterosexual man who cares about fashion and skin/hair care); weapons of mass destruction (which beat blog and the verb google)

Last month over at the unrelated Webster’s New World Dictionary, the staff chose the word Crackberry, the addiction to Blackberry and other handheld data devices, as the 2006 Word of the Year (article).

Previous year’s winners (according to the linked article above): senior moment (temporary forgetfulness by the elderly), job spill (work you have to do on your commute or at home)

It seems to be almost all about politics and technology. Of course, if you took all the blogs about politics and technology off the Web, the only topic blogs (as opposed to personal blogs) left would be about celebrities and animals (and a few on language and humor).