What's Your Favorite Word This Year?

The English language is changing all the time! In fact, every year the Merriam Webster dictionary (official dictionary of the Spelling Bee) adds new words! Usually they are words that have been in very common use over the previous year. Here are some of the new words added in 2021:

• TBH : an abbreviation for "to be honest." TBH is frequently used in social media and text messaging.
• because : by reason of : because of — often used in a humorous way to convey vagueness about the exact reasons for something. This preposition use of because is versatile; it can be used, for example, to avoid delving into the overly technical (“the process works because science”) or to dismiss explanation altogether (“they left because reasons”).
• amirite : slang used in writing for "am I right" to represent or imitate the use of this phrase as a tag question in informal speech. An example: “English spelling is consistently inconsistent, amirite?”
• FTW : an abbreviation for "for the win" —used especially to express approval or support. In social media, FTW is often used to acknowledge a clever or funny response to a question or meme.
• super-spreader : an event or location at which a significant number of people contract the same communicable disease — often used before another noun (as in a “super-spreader event”). The term super-spreader originally referred to a highly contagious person capable of passing on a disease to many others, and now can also refer to a single place or occasion where many others are infected.
• long COVID : a condition that is marked by the presence of symptoms (such as fatigue, cough, shortness of breath, headache, or brain fog) which persist for an extended period of time (such as weeks or months) following a person's initial recovery from COVID-19 infection.
• Oobleck : a mixture of corn starch and water that behaves like a liquid when at rest and like a solid when pressure is applied. Oobleck gets its name from the title of a story by Dr. Seuss, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and is a favorite component in kids’ science experiments.
• chicharron : a small piece of pork belly or pig skin that is fried and eaten usually as a snack : pork rind also : a piece of food that resembles a chicharron.
• Goetta : meat (such as pork) mixed with oats, onions, and spices and fried in the form of a patty.
• air fryer : an airtight, usually small electrical appliance for quick cooking of foods by means of convection currents circulated rapidly by a fan.

What new words would you like to see in the dictionary in 2022?

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