Manbun Fights With Dadbod For 'Word'

Manbun Fights With Dadbod For 'Word'

From VOA Learning English, this is the Education Report.

Does a manbun look good on top of a dadbod?

Or would it be a good hairstyle for an ammosexual?

And do you really want your kids to Netflix and chill while you are out?

You can answer that question if you learn about the choices for Word of the Year.

Choosing a Word of the Year

The competition is fierce. Categories include: most useful, most creative, most unnecessary, most outrageous¹, most euphemistic, most likely to succeed, least likely to succeed, most notable hashtag, and most notable emoji.

Last year, the American Dialect Society or ADS included a new category: most notable hashtag. The hashtag #Blacklivesmatter was the ADS Word of the Year for 2014.

Hashtags are an important part of modern communication, said Ben Zimmer, linguist² and Wall Street Journal writer. Zimmer also heads the ADS committee that chooses words for the Word of the Year vote.

“Even though something like #Blacklivesmatter is clearly a few words that are stuck together in the form of a hashtag, it is working as a unit in an interesting way, and it is becoming a kind of a vehicle for expressing political and social ideas,” Zimmer said.

Allan Metcalf, presdent of the American Dialect Society, agreed with the new category for emojis .   

“Although they are a kind of pictographic language … you read about them, there are articles about them. And it is pointed³ out that after all, Chinese for example, when written down, is kind of symbolic⁴. It represents not the sounds, but the images. Everyone agrees that Chinese as a written language, is a language, so I think it fits in perfectly⁵ well.”

Here are the winners in some of the categories. We have left out phrases that include profanity. Go to the ADS site to see the complete list.

Most Useful

They: Our previous story announced this top winner, which also won in the most useful category. The definition is “gender-neutral singular pronoun for a known person, as a non-binary identifier.”

A non-binary identifier is a word that does not show whether an individual is male or female. Many languages have a third-person pronoun that is neutral in this way. English does not.

Microaggression was almost a winner. Microaggression means an indirect form of racism⁶ or bias⁷.

Ammosexual was the winner in the most creative category. It refers to a person who likes guns a great deal. This word was used to talk about the people who want to show their guns by carrying them in public or posting photos of themselves with guns in social media.

Manbun was the winner in the most unnecessary category. What is a manbun? It is a man’s long hair pulled up in a bun.

Dadbod was a favorite on social media for some time this year. It refers to the overweight body shape of a typical father. Someone joked, “Dadbod is unnecessary because we also have the word, father figure.” (This joke plays with the word “figure” meaning a body shape as well as a role model.)

“Netflix and chill” won in the most euphemistic category. This is an invitation to have a sexual encounter.

Ghost was the winner in the most likely to succeed category. In this way, it is used as a verb. It means to suddenly end a relationship by cutting off communication, in person or online.

Sitbit and hoverboard competed for least likely to succeed. Sitbit is a play on fitbit, a device that measures how much exercise a person does. Sitbit, instead, rewards an inactive lifestyle.

Among hashtags, the nominations⁸ were:

#JeSuisParis: expression of solidarity⁹ after the Paris terror attacks

#LoveWins: celebration of Supreme¹⁰ Court ruling on same-sex marriage

#SayHerName: call to bring attention to police violence against black women.

#StayMadAbby: this makes fun of the plaintiff in a University of Texas affirmative action lawsuit¹¹

#StayWoke: exhortation¹² to remain vigilant¹³ and informed (used by #BlackLivesMatter movement)

The winner in this category was #SayHerName. Sonja Lanehart, editor of the The Oxford¹⁴ Handbook of African American Language said this hashtag should be chosen because it is a term that criticizes violence against women.

The other new category, MOST Notable Emoji, is new for 2015. The choices were:

1 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

2 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

3 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

4 symbolic   

adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的

参考例句：

• It is symbolic of the fighting spirit of modern womanhood.它象征着现代妇女的战斗精神。
• The Christian ceremony of baptism is a symbolic act.基督教的洗礼仪式是一种象征性的做法。

5 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

6 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

7 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

8 nominations   

n.提名，任命( nomination的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nominations are invited for the post of party chairman. 为党主席职位征集候选人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Much coverage surrounded his abortive bids for the 1960,1964, and 1968 Republican Presidential nominations. 许多消息报道都围绕着1960年、1964年和1968年他为争取提名为共和党总统候选人所做努力的失败。 来自辞典例句

9 solidarity   

n.团结；休戚相关

参考例句：

• They must preserve their solidarity.他们必须维护他们的团结。
• The solidarity among China's various nationalities is as firm as a rock.中国各族人民之间的团结坚如磐石。

10 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

11 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

12 exhortation   

n.劝告，规劝

参考例句：

• After repeated exhortation by his comrades,he finally straightened out his thinking.经过同志们再三劝导，他终于想通了。
• Foreign funds alone are clearly not enough,nor are exhortations to reform.光有外资显然不够，只是劝告人们进行改革也不行。

13 vigilant   

adj.警觉的，警戒的，警惕的

参考例句：

• He has to learn how to remain vigilant through these long nights.他得学会如何在这漫长的黑夜里保持警觉。
• The dog kept a vigilant guard over the house.这只狗警醒地守护着这所房屋。

14 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。