Buzzwords and Catchwords Listed

etymologists_rule_pin-r05ae0349868a4078af632d3d0f52b56a_x7j3i_8byvr_216[1]Posted on January 9, 2013 by annegautreau in the Dearborn Branch Website

Amusing-droll-jocular-waggish-witty linguists, lexicographers, etymologists & grammarians voted; now The American Dialect Society has released results from its most recent “Word of the Year” contest. Words considered for inclusion have to have been used in a prominent or notable fashion in 2012. They point out that language is constantly changing and that the process can be entertaining.
WORD OF THE YEAR

#hashtag: a word or phrase preceded by a hash symbol (#), used on Twitter to mark a topic or make a commentary
MOST USEFUL
YOLO: acronym for “You Only Live Once,” often used sarcastically or self-deprecatingly

 -(po)calypse, -(ma)geddon: hyperbolic combining forms for various catastrophes
hate-watching: continuing to follow a television show despite having an aversion to it

beardruff: dandruff from one’s beard
MOST CREATIVE

mansplaining: a man’s condescending explanation to a female audience

alpacalypse: the Mayan apocalypse predicted for Dec. 21, 2012 (alpaca + -lypse)

gate lice: airline passengers who crowd around a gate waiting to board

dancelexia: inability to pull off dance moves (such as misspelling “YMCA”)

MOST UNNECESSARY
legitimate rape: type of rape that Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed rarely results in pregnancy
Frankenstorm: term for Hurricane Sandy’s hybrid storm system (after Frankenstein’s monster)

HD: abbreviation for “high-definition,” used for things that could not be high-definition
feels: slangy shortening of “feelings”
MOST OUTRAGEOUS
Dunlop effect: when one’s stomach protrudes over ill-fitting pants (“belly done lop over the belt”)

legitimate rape: type of rape that Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin claimed rarely results in pregnancy

slut-shaming: attacking a woman for socially stigmatized sexual activity

butt-chugging: an alcohol enema, used in college fraternity hazing rituals

MOST EUPHEMISTIC

disruptive: destroying existing business models

Gray Thursday: name given to Thanksgiving as a shopping day before Black Friday
self-deportation: policy of encouraging illegal immigrants to return voluntarily to their home countries

ratchet: slang term originally referring to “urban divas” now used to mean “ghetto”
evolution: change of opinion
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED

fiscal cliff: threat of spending cuts and tax increases looming over end-of-year budget negotiations

superstorm: an unusually large and destructive storm, such as Hurricane Sandy
MOOC: acronym for “massive open online course”

marriage equality: legal recognition of same-sex marriage

big data: large collections of digital information used for revealing behavioral insights
LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED

cray-cray: slangy shortening and reduplication of “crazy”
 
Gangnam style: the trendy style of Seoul’s Gangnam district, as used in the Korean pop song of the same name

Windows Metro: name originally used for the Windows 8 operating system

phablet: mid-sized electronic device between a smartphone and a tablet

YOLO: acronym for “You Only Live Once,” often used sarcastically or self-deprecatingly

meggings: a blend for “male leggings”
ELECTION WORDS

47 percent: portion of the population that does not pay federal income tax

Etch-a-Sketch: metaphor of reinvention used by Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom

Eastwooding: photo fad inspired by Clint Eastwood’s unscripted speech at the RNC

Romney/Obama: names of candidates used for blends (Obamaloney, Obamageddon, Romnesia, Romney Hood)

binders (full of women): term used by Romney in the second presidential debate to describe the resumes of female job candidates that he consulted as governor of Massachusetts

malarkey: nonsense, empty talk (as used by Biden in the vice-presidential debate)

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UCR Rates

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The University of California at Riverside is a partner with  AAUW.  Did you know how high UCR ranks in a number of ways?  Take a look at these facts.

Leiden University (2013) ranked UCR 35thin the world and 29thin North America in their survey of the 500 top universities. The Leiden Ranking is based on a sophisticated set of bibliometric indicators that measures the scientific impact of universities and of their involvement in scientific collaboration. When broken down by fields, UCR ranked:

  • 10th in natural sciences and engineering
  • 79th in social sciences and humanities.
  • 90th in biomedical and health sciences.
  • 95th in life and earth sciences.
  • 170th in mathematics and computer science.

U.S. News & World Report(2012–13) ranked UCR highly in several categories:

  • 8th in the nation in diversity.
  • 24th on “Best Value Schools.”
  • 46th among top public schools.

To see other rankings of UCR click HERE.

You might also want to take a look at UCR’s website by clicking on the link on the right hand side of this page and learn more about this great University.

Senate Immigration Bill Would Reduce Deficit

immigration_reform_now_0[1]The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan experts who analyze the financial impact of legislation, believes that the Senate immigration bill would reduce the deficit by almost $1 trillion over the next two decades, if passed.

How does that work? Immigration reform means that undocumented immigrants can come out of the shadows and start paying taxes for things like education and Social Security. It means that everyone plays by the same set of rules — which makes the economy fairer for middle class families.

  • TAXES — $459 Billion in new revenues in the first 10 years
  • ECONOMY — Increase Real GDP by 4.5% by 2033
  • SOCIAL SECURITY — More the $200 Billion added to the Social   Security Trust Fund in the next 10 years.
  • NEW BUSINESSES — In 2011, immigrants started 28% of all new businesses while only accounting for 13% of the U.S. population

 

Now is Time for Women’s Issues

With women comprising over half the population of the United States and over half the workforce, with the significant part that women played in the reelection of Obama as President, the time is right for pushing for the major issues facing women. This includes raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing workers the opportunity to earn paid sick leave, expanding affordable child care programs and passing 371px-Woman-power_emblem_svg[1]the Paycheck Fairness Act.

A woman working full-time, year-round, at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, earns about $14,500 a year. For a family of three, that’s $4,000 below the federal poverty line. And women disproportionately comprise the minimum-wage workforce. Women also make up the majority of workers in the 10 largest, lowest-paying occupations, according to the National Women’s Law Center, as reported HERE earlier.

New research suggests that the minimum wage is not entirely separate from the issue of equal pay. A recent analysis from the National Women’s Law Center suggests that the gender pay gap is worse in the 31 states that haven’t raised the minimum wage higher than the federal minimum of $7.25. Of the 10 states with the lowest wage gaps, seven have set a minimum wage higher than the federal rate.  And even as their share of the financial burden grows, women make up nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers, and they routinely face wage discrimination in their jobs.  It behooves us to pass Rep. George Miller’s (D-Calif.) bill raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

pay-gap-graph[1]The Paycheck Fairness Act, which strengthens the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and closes some of the loopholes employers are using to pay women less than men for the same work, must be passed if we are to begin to close the wage gap between women’s pay and men’s.

As a Pew study found early this month, women are increasingly the sole or primary breadwinners in their families, the paid sick leave issue has a greater resonance when cast in terms of working mothers: Why should a woman have to choose between caring for a sick child and earning a day’s pay? That kind of framing helped make Connecticut the first state in the U.S. with a paid sick day law on its books in 2011.  DeLauro’s Healthy Families Act, which would allow workers to earn up to seven paid sick days a year is certainly worth pushing.

As for affordable, quality childcare, President Obama’s plan to dramatically expand pre-kindergarten in the U.S. by doubling federal taxes on cigarettes is a good start.

Hope springs from young women (and men), another generation of people who think in a different, more open way.  With them, we can begin to deal with these issues.  We must continue to make our voices heard.