Visitors to Merriam-Webster OnLine Choose 'truthiness' as 2006 WORD OF THE YEAR

Visitors to Merriam-Webster OnLine Choose 'truthiness' as 2006 WORD OF THE YEAR

SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Merriam-Webster OnLine, the leading source for English language reference on the Web, has revealed the results of its first Word of the Year online survey. For the past few years, the site has tallied the millions of anonymous hits to its free online dictionary and thesaurus to come up with the most frequently looked up words of the year. This year, however, Merriam-Webster decided to ask its visitors to send in their own nominations for the one word they think best sums up the past eleven months. By an overwhelming 5-to-1 majority vote, the company's online community has chosen the word "truthiness" to take top honors as Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2006.

Truthiness became popularized after the October 2005 debut broadcast of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, when the show's host Stephen Colbert defined the word as "truth that comes from the gut, not books." In January of 2006, the American Dialect Society chose the word as their own 16th annual Word of the Year, defining it as "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."

"I think there's a serious issue lurking behind the popularity of the word truthiness," said John Morse, President and Publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc. "What is it exactly that constitutes truth today? This isn't just a political question-it's relevant to a broad spectrum of social issues where our ideas on the nature of authority are being challenged. Adopting the word truthiness is a playful way to deal with this important question."

There are not many similar examples of playfulness in the remaining nine top words of the year chosen by Merriam-Webster's site-users. The #2 position on the list, for example, is held by the word war-a common word that, remarkably, has never before shown up on any of the site's monthly lists of Top 50 most-frequently looked up words. Last-place winner corruption is particularly interesting because of the first sense of its definition: "the impairment of integrity." Integrity was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2005.

Traffic to Merriam-Webster OnLine now encompasses 100 million individual page views per month. On average, the company responds to approximately ten lookup requests in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary or Thesaurus per second. During peak hours, this may increase to more than 100 requests per second.

For the complete list of Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year, including definitions, please visit http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/06words.htm. For additional information, or to arrange an interview on this topic with John M. Morse, please contact Arthur J. Bicknell, Senior Publicist, at the below address.

Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster Inc. acquired the rights to revise and publish Noah Webster's dictionaries in 1843. Since then, Merriam-Webster has maintained an ongoing commitment to innovation, scholarship, and love of language. Today, the company continues as the leader in both print and electronic language reference publishing with reference products, learning tools, and word games. For more information about the company, and about Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, visit Merriam-Webster OnLine at http://www.merriam-webster.com/.

CONTACT:
Arthur Bicknell, Senior Publicist
Merriam-Webster Inc.
Phone: (413) 734-3134 ext. 119
E-mail: abicknell@Merriam-Webster.com

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: Merriam-Webster Inc.

CONTACT: Arthur Bicknell, Senior Publicist of Merriam-Webster Inc.,
+1-413-734-3134 ext. 119, or abicknell@Merriam-Webster.com

Web site: http://www.merriam-webster.com/
http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/06words.htm

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