Top Ten Words

The Merriam-Webster dictionary folks have declared the top ten words for 2014.

1. Culture

2. Nostalgia

3. Insidious

4. Legacy

5. Feminism

6. Je ne sais quoi

7. Innovation

8. Surreptitious

9. Autonomy

10. Morbidity

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/2014-word-of-the-year/autonomy.html)

Nine English buzzwords, all nouns, were heard in speeches, read in newspapers, and viewed online. They rang true to the topic most of the time. The single French word (#6) was from a paid fast food commercial that murdered the meaning.

If I had been consulted by the Merriam-Webster word-of-the -year team, my appraisal of this mismatched list would have been jejune, a French word translated to simplified English as “not interesting; boring.”

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jejune