"Grass station" is word of the year

Do environmentalists fall asleep to dreams about fields of Iowa corn filling up the tanks of station wagons? What about NASCAR drivers? Maybe they do, if recent advances in technology--and the popular buzz that follows--are any indication. That is why the 2007 Word of the Year at Webster's New World College Dictionary is grass station. The term is so hot that it already has appeared on the op-ed page of The New York Times.

Grass station, a pun on gas station, refers to a theoretical fill-up spot in the not-too-distant future; it reflects America's growing love affair with hybrid cars and vegetable-based fuels (and words), including ethanol and biomass fuels--some of which really are distilled from plain old grass--note Webster's New World editors who chose the term from more than 2,000 finalists. "Webster's New World editors and researchers constantly collect examples of emerging English--some 2,000 new examples per month--and choose one word or phrase that captures our imagination," explains Editor-in-Chief Michael Agnes.

Other strong contenders for 2007 honors included these hip and happening coinages:

* iPodization. The creeping cultural practices and expectations of those for whom a relentless haze of popular music is mandatory and the consolidation of entertainment and technological novelty is a categorical imperative.

* Freegan. Dumpster-diving goes trendy. Freegans live according to a strict credo: Do not buy anything if you do not need to. As part of an effort to go off the shopping grid completely, they hunt and gather tossed-out (but still safely edible) food from restaurants and grocers, then serve it up for dinner. Now that is a radical idea.

* God particle. Invoking the Higgs boson, the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle of subatomic physics, it is the theoretical agent that endows the universe with the phenomenon of mass. As such, its power within the scheme of physical reality is so great that the metaphor of God seems necessary.

In most cases, the word designated as Word of the Year has yet to find its way into the dictionary. "The choice does not reflect an opinion that the term will eventually be found in the dictionary," points out Agnes. "It's merely one that made us chuckle, think, reflect, or just shake our heads."

COPYRIGHT 2007 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning