Merriam Webster, the dictionary publisher with a big online presence, has announced the most looked-up words of 2012. The top two, tied as Words of the Year, are socialism and capitalism. That Americans evidently don’t know what those two words mean helps explain the election.
Others in the top ten are Democracy, globalization, marriage, bigot, malarkey, meme, touche, schadenfreude, professionalism.
Last year the top word was austerity. The year before that, it was pragmatic.
That Americans don’t know the meaning of these words and so have to look them up explains everything!
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