Merriam-Webster Dictionary Names Gender Pronoun 'They' as 2019 Word of the Year

Nick Kangadis | December 10, 2019
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Even dictionaries gone “woke.” Dictionaries!

Merriam-Webster has named the word “they” the word of the year for 2019. That’s not a typo. A pronoun is the word of the year. I was really holding out hope for “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

Of course, “they” was deemed the top word of 2019 because of its relation to gender pronouns. According to the dictionary maker, the term saw a 313 percent rise in the last year.

According to CNN:

Merriam-Webster said in a statement that the word of the year winner was determined by data.

Key moments cited by the dictionary publisher where searches spiked were January's Paris Fashion Week featuring nonbinary model Oslo Grace, US congresswoman Pramila Jayapal's April statement about her child being gender-nonconforming and June's Pride celebrations[…]

Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster, said in a statement: "Pronouns are among the language's most commonly used words, and like other common words (think go, do, and have) they tend to be mostly ignored by dictionary users.

So let me guess. Because pronouns are “mostly ignored by dictionary users,” “they” was the word of the year for inclusion-sake.

CNN also noted that Collins Dictionary named “climate strike” as their word of the year, while the Oxford Dictionary saw “climate emergency” rise to the top of their 2019 list of popular terms.

There’s nowhere people can turn anymore without politics or “social issues” poisoning everything. It’s a book. It has words. It has definitions. End of story. Quit trying to influence everyone to think like everyone else.

If you really want more on this ever-so-important story, Merriam-Webster came out with a "Behind the Scenes" video on YouTube:

 

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