“It is a solemn and important duty we have,” Allan Metcalf, a grandfatherly looking man, said into a microphone. He was standing in front of a crowd of the nation’s top linguists, many of whom were still flooding into the already packed room. The space was tight, Mr. Metcalf apologized, but the linguists had only an hour. They had to get started.

“What happens after this?” I whispered to a man next to me.

“After we choose the Word of the Year?” he asked. “Pillaging. I expect downtown Portland to be wrecked.” He paused. “That’s rekt,” a shorthand spelling of the word. “R-E-K-T.”

It was a bit of linguistic humor for the start of what is perhaps the year’s most anticipated lexicological event: the annual selection of the Word of the Year (also known as WOTY) by the American Dialect Society. If wordsmiths had a Super Bowl, this would be it, a place where the nation’s most well-regarded grammarians, etymologists and language enthusiasts gather to talk shop. More.

See: The New York Times

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