Entry 671, on 2008-01-11 at 19:11:03 (Rating 1, Comments)
I have just listened to a podcast which discussed the word of the year for 2007. It also looked back at the last few years and listed other recent words of the year. It was quite enlightening to see what the words were.
In 2003 the word was "text", that is in the context of sending text messages on a cell phone. That's just 4 years ago yet texting seems like it has been around forever. Of course, early adopters like myself were using text long before the word itself became important.
In 2004 the word was "blog". That indicates blogging became prominent just 3 years ago. Again I was a bit ahead of the pack because I began blogging near the beginning of 2003. Its hard to believe that it has come so far since then and is now accepted as an integral part of the world's information distribution system. Actually, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised because the lesson is that the Internet technologies which do become successful at all tend to become wildly successful.
Continuing the technology theme the word in 2005 was podcast. I have mentioned many times in this blog how podcasts have become such an important part of my life. So many of my blog entries (such as this one) start with me listening to a podcast so it is obvious that they are a significant information source. This was also the year I began doing my own podcasts - something I do mainly just for the experience more than to become a serious regular podcaster.
The word for 2006 was from a slightly different area. It was carbon neutral. I have mentioned in this blog many times how I see the acceptance of global warming becoming more widespread as time goes by. In every case I have seen it is older people who can't accept it. I'm not sure why this is: maybe its just a statistical coincidence related to the people I know or maybe its that older people tend to be more fixed in their opinions. At least the fact that a warming related word was chosen in 2006 indicates it has become important even if the subject is still controversial in some areas.
So what was the word for last year? It was one which I hadn't heard much so I guess it was picked more for its presumed future influence than its present use. The word was "locavor". A locavor is a person who chooses their diet from local ingredients (presumably primarily to combat carbon emission from transport). So this word is also related to global warming, another indication of its prominence.
Its interesting that all the words I have listed are primarily related to science and technology. Clearly this is where the cutting edge of western society really is. I won't seriously speculate on what the word for the year might be for 2008 except to say it will probably be related to a new Internet phenomenon (on-line apps for example) or from another area of science or technology.
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