Palin’s ‘refudiate’ named word of the year
By IANSTuesday, November 16, 2010
NEW YORK - “Refudiate”, a made-up word inadvertently used by former US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been named the Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year for 2010, media reports said Tuesday.
The former Alaska governor introduced the term last July when she used it in a Tweet about the proposed Islamic Cultural Center near the World Trade Center site in New York City.
“Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate,” she posted on her Twitter account, CBS News reported.
The word, believed to be a mixture of “refute” and “repudiate”, was also named the number four top words of 2010 by the Global Language Monitor.
“Refudiate” triumphed over other words including “retweet”, “vuvuzela”, “bankster”, a name for an evil banker, and “Gleek”, a name for a fan of the TV show “Glee”, the Sydney Morning Herald and AAP reported.
Palin defended her usage of “refudiate” in another Tweet: “‘Refudiate’, ‘misunderestimate’, ‘wee-wee’d up’, English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”
In an announcement made on the Oxford University Press blog, editors said the entry would read: “Refudiate: verb used loosely to mean ‘reject’: she called on them to refudiate the proposal to build a mosque”.
The dictionary’s editors said the terms was the “unquestionable buzzword of 2010″.
Other words on the shortlist were “webisode” - an original episode derived from a television series, made for online viewing, “Tea Party” and “nom nom” - an expression of delight when eating.
