www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
China / Life

The dictionary folk at Merriam-Webster sum up 2016: surreal

By Associated Press in New York (China Daily) Updated: 2016-12-24 07:33

 The dictionary folk at Merriam-Webster sum up 2016: surreal

The "surreal" entry in a Merriam-Webster's dictionary in New York. "Surreal" is Merriam-Webster's word of 2016 based on spikes in lookups.Bebetomatthews / AP

Was 2016 a dream or a nightmare?

Try something in between: "surreal", which is Merriam-Webster's word of the year, unveiled last week.

Meaning "marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream," or "unbelievable, fantastic," the word joins Oxford's "post-truth" and Dictionary.com's "xenophobia" as the year's top choices.

"It just seems like one of those years," says Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large.

The company tracks year-over-year growth and spikes in lookups of words on its website to come up with the top choice. This time around, there were many periods of interest in "surreal" throughout the year, often in the aftermath of tragedy, Sokolowski says.

Major spikes came after the Brussels attack in March and again in July, after the Bastille Day massacre in Nice and the attempted coup in Turkey. All three received huge attention around the globe and had many in the media reaching for "surreal" to describe both the physical scenes and the "mental landscapes," Sokolowski says.

The single biggest spike in lookups came in November, he says, specifically Nov 9, the day Donald Trump went from candidate to president-elect.

There were also smaller spikes, including after the death of Prince in April at age 57 and after the June shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Irony mixed with the surreal for yet another bump after the March death of Garry Shandling. His first sitcom, It's Garry Shandling's Show, premiered on Showtime in 1986 and had him busting through the fourth wall, speaking directly to the audience and mimicking his real life as a standup comedian, but one who knew he was starring in a TV show.

"It was surreal and it's connected to the actual original meaning of surreal, which is to say it comes from Surrealism, the artistic movement of the early 20th century," Sokolowski says.

Which is to say that "surreal" didn't exist as a word until around 1924, after a group of European poets, painters and filmmakers founded a movement they called Surrealism. They sought to access the truths of the unconscious mind by breaking down rational thought.

It wasn't until 1937 that "surreal" began to exist on its own, says Sokolowski, who is a lexicographer.

Merriam-Webster first started tracking lookup trends in 1996, when the dictionary landed online. In 2001, after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Springfield, Massachusetts-based company noticed plenty of spikes in word lookups. The most enduring spike was for "surreal," pointing to a broader meaning and greater usage, Sokolowski says.

"We noticed the same thing after the Newtown shootings, after the Boston Marathon bombings, after Robin Williams' suicide," he says. "Surreal has become this sort of word that people seek in moments of great shock and tragedy."

Word folk like Sokolowski can't pinpoint exactly why people look words up online, but they know it's not only to check spellings or definitions. Right after 9/11, words that included "rubble" and "triage" spiked, he says. A couple days after that, more political words took over in relation to the tragedy, including "jingoism" and "terrorism."

"But then we finally hit 'surreal,' so we had a concrete response, a political response and finally a philosophical response," Sokolowski says. "That's what connects all these tragic events."

Other words that made Merriam-Webster's Top 10 for 2016 due to significant spikes in lookups:

Bigly: Yes, it's a word but a rare and sometimes archaic form of "big," dating to around 1400, Sokolowski says. It made its way into the collective mind thanks to Trump, who was fond of using "big league" as an adverb but making it sound like bigly.

Deplorable: Thank you, Hillary Clinton and your basket full of, though it's not technically a noun.

Irregardless: It's considered a "nonstandard" word for regardless. It's best avoided, Sokolowski says. Irregardless was used during the calling of the last game of the World Series and its use was pilloried on social media, he says.

Icon: This spike came after Prince's April 21 death, along with surreal. "It was just a moment of public mourning, the likes of which really happen very seldom," Sokolowski says.

Assumpsit: At the Democratic National Convention, Elizabeth Warren was introduced by one her former law students at Harvard, Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III of Massachusetts. He described how on his first day she asked him for the definition of assumpsit and he didn't know.

"She says, 'Mr Kennedy do you own a dictionary?' so everybody looked it up," Sokolowski laughed.

For the record: It's a legal term with Latin roots for a type of implied promise or contract. Kennedy didn't define it when he told the story.

Faute de mieux: Literally, this French phrase means "lack of something better or more desirable." Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used it in a brief concurring opinion in June to support a ruling that struck down a Texas law that would have closed all but nine abortion clinics in the state.

In omnia paratus: A Latin phrase for "ready for all things." Curiosity surfaced when Netflix revived "Gilmore Girls" recently, including reference to this famous chant during an episode in the original series where Rory is talked into leaping off a high platform as part of the initiation for a secret society at Yale. It became a rallying cry for fans of the show.

Revenant: Leonardo DiCaprio played one in a movie of the same name, sending people scurrying to the dictionary. It describes "one that returns after death or a long absence." It can be traced to the 1820s and while it sounds biblical, it is not, Sokolowski says.

Feckless: It's how Vice President-elect Mike Pence described President Obama's foreign policy when he debated Democrat Tim Kaine. It means weak or worthless.

Online

Merriam-Webster's list:

http://www.merriamwebster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the-year-2016

Highlights
Hot Topics

...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 日韩毛片欧美一级国产毛片 | 亚洲成 人a影院青久在线观看 | 国产精品成人观看视频国产 | 中文字幕二区三区 | 欧美一级毛片无遮挡 | 久久亚洲国产精品 | 一级片成人 | 国产自在自线午夜精品视频在 | 中文字幕亚洲视频 | 免费观看欧美性一级 | 夜夜爱夜夜爽夜夜做夜夜欢 | 国产夫妇肉麻对白 | 国产成人理在线观看视频 | 曰韩美女一级视频 | 成人在线综合 | 欧美韩国日本在线 | 免费一级欧美大片在线观看 | 欧美一级大片在线观看 | 欧美aⅴ在线 | 久久久久久久久久久9精品视频 | 久久中文字幕亚洲精品最新 | 男女做性免费视频软件 | 日本污污网站 | 久久免费看 | 99热久久国产精品这 | 亚洲精品国产美女在线观看 | 成年人免费黄色 | 午夜爽爽爽男女免费观看hd | 在线精品免费观看综合 | 成人亚洲国产精品久久 | 久草免费资源在线 | 亚洲国产一区二区三区四区 | 亚洲第一区视频在线观看 | 国产午夜精品免费一二区 | 女同日韩互慰互摸在线观看 | 在线毛片一区二区不卡视频 | 国产精品自拍视频 | 免费a级毛片无码 | 成人性动漫高清免费观看网址 | 毛片b| 成人免费观看国产高清 |