Linguists choose 'subprime' as 2007 word of the year

Even the American Dialect Society knows how risky home mortgages are these days.

The group of linguists chose "subprime" as 2007's Word of the Year at their annual convention in Chicago.

"'Subprime' has been around with bankers for awhile, but now everyone is talking about 'subprime,'" said Wayne Glowka, a spokesman for the group and a dean at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Ga. "It's affecting all kinds of people in all kinds of places."

Around 80 members of the organization spent two days debating the merits of runners-up "Facebook," ''green," ''GooglegȤnger," and "waterboarding," before voting Friday for an adjective that means "a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage or investment."

The choice signifies the public's concern for a "deepening mortgage crisis," the society said in a statement.

"Facebook," as a noun, verb or adjective, was popular with younger linguists, Glowka said.

A vocal few lobbied for "green," which "designates environmental concern," Glowka said. But the prefix has been around for years, he added. The word topped the 2007 "Most Useful" category, one of numerous subgroups the society choses. (A runner-up was "connectile dysfunction" which is the "inability to gain or maintain a connection.")

The group also decided that, although "waterboarding," an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, has gained a lot of attention through recent attorney general hearings, it was a bigger deal in 2004, Glowka said.

But what's a "GooglegȤnger?"

A play on the word "doppelgȤnger," it's "a person with your name who shows up when you Google yourself," according to the society.

Glowka said he assessed a lot of Google-related words.

"Just Google 'Google' and you'll turn them up," he said. The ghostly double of a word won the 2007 "Most Creative" designation.

As for "subprime," Glowka said it is an odd word. Well, at least as far as linguists are concerned.

The prefix "sub" translates roughly to "below the standard," while "prime" means something close to "the best."

So, according to Glowka, the word really means "far below the best."

"People were saying that students were referring to their tests, 'I'm going to subprime this; I'm going to mess it up,'" Glowka said.

The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is made up of linguists, grammarians, historians, researchers, professors and university students. The society began choosing words of the year in 1990.

In 2006 the organization chose "pluto" or "to be plutoed," which means "to be demoted or devalued."

Here are the winning words chosen by the American Dialect Society as 2007's best words or phrases:

-- Word of the Year: Subprime, an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment.-- Most Useful: Green, designates environmental concern.-- Most Creative: GooglegÃcirc;curren;nger, person with your name who shows up when you Google yourself.-- Most Unnecessary: Happy Kwanhanamas, Happy Holidays. Kwanza + Hanukkah + Christmas.-- Most Outrageous: Toe-tapper, a homosexual. Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, was arrested in June for an encounter in a Minneapolis airport bathroom in which toe-tapping was said to have been used as a sexual come-on.-- Most Euphemistic: Human terrain team, a group of social scientists employed by the U.S. military to serve as cultural advisers in Iraq or Afghanistan.-- Most Likely To Succeed: Green, designates environmental concern.-- Least Likely To Succeed: Strand-in, protest duplicating being stranded inside an airplane on a delayed flight.--(New Category)Real Estate/Mortgage/Loan Words: subprime.Source: American Dialect Society: www.americandialect.orgHere are past winning words or phrases chosen by the American Dialect Society in its "Word of the Year" contest, followed by their definitions.-- 2006: To pluto. To be demoted or devalued.-- 2005: Truthiness. What one wishes to be truth regardless of the facts, made popular by the Comedy Central TV show "The Colbert Report."-- 2004: Red, blue, and purple states. Red-favoring conservative Republicans and blue-favoring liberal Democrats, as well as the undecided purple states in the political map of the U.S.-- 2003: Metrosexual. Fashion-conscious, heterosexual male.-- 2002: Weapons of mass destruction. Sought in Iraq.-- 2001: 9/11 or Sept. 11. Date of terrorist attacks on the United States.-- 2000: Chad. A small scrap of paper punched from a voting card.-- 1999: Y2K. Scare of a 2000 computer glitch.-- 1998: The prefix "e." Meaning electronic, like e-mail or e-commerce.-- 1997: Millennium bug. Also known as Y2K.-- 1996: Soccer mom. Newly significant type of voter.-- 1995: Tie between World Wide Web, as in the Internet, and newt, to make aggressive changes as a newcomer.-- 1994: Tie between cyber, pertaining to computers and electronic communication, and morph, to change form.-- 1993: Information superhighway. Network linking computers, television and other electronic means of communication.-- 1992: Not! An expression of disagreement.-- 1991: Mother of all. Greatest, most impressive.-- 1990: Bushlips. Insincere political rhetoric.