When we think back over the past ten years, there are a number of words which stand out – from new dictionary additions to frequently used phrases.
But it seems the American Dialect Society (ADS) has said that one word, in particular, has had a huge impact.
They’ve named the gender neutral pronoun ‘they’ as the Word of the Decade.
The organisation – which has been compiling Words of the Year for the past 30 years – voted on the top word of the 2010s at an annual meeting in New Orleans.
ADS chairperson, Ben Zimmer, said: ‘When a basic part of speech like the pronoun becomes a vital indicator of social trends, linguists pay attention.
‘The selection of “(my) pronouns” as Word of the Year speaks to how the personal expression of gender identity has become an increasing part of our shared discourse.’
The title comes after singer Sam Smith announced in September 2019 that they were changing their pronouns to ‘they/them’.
Other words in the running for the 2019 Word of the Year title included ‘cancel’ and ‘OK boomer’, whereas ‘#BlackLivesMatter’, ‘#MeToo’, ‘meme’, ‘woke’ and ‘emoji’ were all on the shortlist for Word of the Decade.
According to the website, the Word of the Year can be any ‘vocabulary item’, word or phrase, which has been prominent for the past 12 months.
The organisation – which is made up of linguists, lexicographers, grammarians, historians and students – also crowned winners for other word categories.
Political Word of the Year was ‘Quid pro quo’ – alluding to Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry, and the Slang Word of the Year was ‘hot girl summer’ – in reference to the song by Megan Thee Stallion.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/06/gender-neutral-pronoun-they-named-word-of-the-decade-12009814/
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