As Usual, We Nominate “ArtsJournal”

What word best describes 2005? On-Demand? Podcast? Sudoku? Truthiness? (Yes, Mr. Colbert, we see you waving.) The debate will rage today at the annual gathering of the American Dialect Society, as America’s wordsmiths attempt to pinpoint, in a word or two, everything that 2005 was about. “In 2003, the word of the year was metrosexual, which seems to have stuck. The year before, it was weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, or maybe, in retrospect, it wasn’t.” Nominees for 2005 include “intelligent design,” “blogola,” and “muffin top.” (That last one is the bulge of flesh that results when low-rider jeans are worn by non-rail-thin individuals.) And no, Wonkette fans, “Abramoffakkuh” is not eligible, having emerged after the New Year.