Social Marketing Through the Dictionary

The New Oxford American Dictionary announced that the Word of the Year is “Carbon Neutral” (actually, that’s two words, but who am I to quibble with a dictionary?). It will be added to the next update of the dictionary, due in 2007.

According to the press release, “Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions (your “carbon footprint”), reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in “green” technologies such as solar and wind power.”

Carbon Neutral beat out other potential dictionary inductees with social marketing relevance including (and I’m not making these up):

• Elbow Bump – a greeting in which two people touch elbows, recommended by the World Health Organization as an alternative to the handshake in order to reduce the spread of germs (Hmmm, wonder why this didn’t catch on. I guess it’s more hygenic than the Eskimo kiss, which the Alaska Health Organization has been promoting.)
• Ghostriding – the practice of exiting a moving vehicle and dancing either beside it, or on the hood or roof, while the vehicle is in motion
• Pregaming – consuming alcoholic beverages before attending a sporting event or party, especially one where alcohol may be limited or banned (or likely, before going ghostriding)

Just for fun, I looked up the Word of the Year for the past few years (though it seems to be a recent annual event for the OAD, so I’ve had to go to other sources):
2005 – podcast (Oxford American Dictionary)
2004 – blog (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
2003 – metrosexual (American Dialect Society)

And just to illustrate how the US and UK are two countries separated by a common language, the 2006 word of the year for the Oxford English Dictionary is “bovvered.” In case you are not familiar with this word either, here’s how the article explained it:

Catherine Tate [a TV comic] catapulted her word into national parlance in November 2005 when at the 77th Royal Variety Performance in Cardiff she asked the Queen: “Is one bothered?” Dictionary compilers say the catchphrase needs little explanation.

A spokesman for the OED said: “Am I bovvered? and it’s follow-up Does my face looked bovvered? had already come to be seen as the perfect expression of a generation of teenagers and their speaking style.

“Now in 2006 ‘bovvered’ has taken over from ‘whatever’ as the signature phrase of teenagers, and to challenge the Little Britain catchphrase ‘yeah-but-no-but’ as the embodiment of couldn’t-care-less adolescence.”

Am I bovvered? Gotta go elbow bump my buds before I do some carbon neutral ghostriding. See ya.

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