The English language has more than half a million words, and the number is growing all the time. But the question of why particular words come into fashion is in itself a fascinating field of enquiry. Merriam-Webster has picked a small but powerful suffix as "Word of the Year". It's "ism".
The vast vocabulary of the English language is partly a function of having both German and Latin roots, and partly the legacy of a vast empire, but it's also the result of continuous reinvention, including the addition of "-ism" to the end of a word. The top -isms to earn high hit rates on Merriam-Webster's website in 2015 are: socialism, fascism, racism, feminism, communism, capitalism, and terrorism.
"Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year is determined by two simple criteria: the word must show high volume of traffic and show significant year-over-year increase in look-ups at Merriam-Webster.com. This year, a group of words near the top of our list had something in common. They all ended in 'ism', and these words tell us a lot about the past year. The Merriam-Webster Word of the Year for 2015 is 'ism'," said Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster.
Pinpointing reasons why words gather momentum at Merriam-Webster is an educated guess. The dictionary company tracks corresponding news events to link lookups to real life.
The word 'socialism' has Bernie Sanders to thank for its recent revival.
"This year's top word, 'Socialism', has been among the most looked-up words for several years, but curiosity has been especially intense with an increase of 169% over last year. Lookups spiked particularly high on the night of the first Democratic debate in October, when Bernie Sanders used the term. This shows that it has moved beyond its Cold War association," he said.
Other -ism words on the move at Merriam-Webster.com this year were professionalism, masochism, federalism, pragmatism, existentialism, hedonism, and Marxism.
The company began picking a word of the year in 2003. Last year, it went with one of our favourite words - "culture"!
