Merriam-Webster's 2006 Word of the Year is NOT in their online dictionary. Officially coined on October 17, 2005, it had already won the American Dialect Society's 2005 Award _(pdf) where they claim that "other meanings of the word date as far back as 1824", and is probably a shoe-in for for the Banished Words of 2007 list.

A distant number 2 is our friend "the goog", and after that, it's all NewsFilter/PoliticsFilter/IraqFilter (with that all-time classic "war" at #4).
(From the MeFite who posted the Favorite Words of 2004 and the Banished Words List in 2003 and 2004)
posted by wendell on Dec 9, 2006 - 48 comments

Kissinger declares Iraq can't be won. Rep. Hangel, incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means, proposes to reinstate the draft.
posted by bukharin on Nov 19, 2006 - 93 comments

Newsfilter: RUMMY QUITS!! Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigns.
posted by ernie on Nov 8, 2006 - 237 comments

Seth MacFarlane's Harvard Speech (as himself, Peter, Stewie and Quagmire).
posted by zenzizi on Jun 10, 2006 - 29 comments

It was an instant icon, with Dan Rather calling it "the best war photograph in recent years." About 100 newspapers ran the photo, dubbing the anonymous warrior the "Marlboro Man." The photograph hit the world on Nov. 10, 2004: a close-cropped shot of a U.S. Marine in Iraq, his face smeared with blood and dirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips, smoke curling across weary eyes. He's quieter now -- easier to anger. He turns to fight at the sound of a backfire, can't look at fireworks without thinking of fire raining down on a city. He has trouble sleeping, and when he does, his fingers twitch on invisible triggers. The diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder. The man in the photograph is James Blake Miller, now 21, and he is an icon, although in ways Rather probably never imagined.

Previously mentioned briefly here
posted by stenseng on Jan 29, 2006 - 27 comments

Iraq - Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh shares his thoughts on the path of america. (streaming video and audio, transcript included. Video is long, 20 minutes 49 seconds. Worth watching) Seymour Hersh works for the newyorker. He is best known for breaking the My Lai massacre story from Vietnam.
posted by sourbrew on Jan 28, 2005 - 24 comments