Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year 2006

"Truthiness", a term coined by the American satirical TV show The Colbert Report, has been chosen as the word of the year by dictionary maker Merriam-Webster. Truthiness is defined as "truth that comes from the gut, not books", or "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true". It was the American Dialect Society word of the year in 2005.

Among the other words of the year are: war, insurgent, terrorism, vendetta, sectarian, quagmire and corruption. It was a very happy year. More from CBC Online.

And Oxford University Press will make Al Gore very happy. Its selection for the 2006 Word of the Year is carbon neutral.

Related Library Boy posts about words include:

• "Podcast" Named Word of the Year, "Blog" Chosen as Word to be Banished (December 12, 2005): "The Oxford American Dictionary has selected podcast as their word of the year. Among the runner-ups were: bird flu, IDP (internally displaced person), IED (a kind of bomb), persistent vegetative state, rootkit, and sudoku."
• Banished Words List 2006 (January 2, 2006): "Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste.Marie (Michigan) is continuing its tradition of compiling an annual Banished Words List, or 'List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness' first launched in 1976'."
• American Dialect Society Words of the Year 2005: Legal Expressions 'Patent Troll', 'Extraordinary Rendition' Make List (January 11, 2006): "A few other law-related terms scored highly in the 'most euphemistic' category (hmmmm, I wonder why): 'internal nutrition: force-feeding a prisoner against his or her will' and 'extraordinary rendition: the surrendering of a suspect or detainee to another jurisdiction, especially overseas' (in order to be tortured by a friendly dictatorship with less regard for the niceties of courts and a legal defense)."