As the year ends, lexicographers and other word geeks traditionally put their heads together to choose or vote for a word of the year (WOTY). It’s not that simple, of course: different groups pick different words in different ways for different reasons. And it’s not always a word – other “vocabulary items” like phrases and parts of words are generally allowed.

Words of the Year can be new or newly prominent or significant. They’re like annual trending topics, pointing to wider concerns in society, and it can be fun to follow the suggestions and the debates over which ones deserve recognition and why. A handy way to do this is through the #woty or #woty11 hashtags on Twitter.

Some have already been named: polls at TIME and Dictionary.com elected occupy and tergiversate, respectively, while Merriam-Webster went with pragmatic and Oxford Dictionaries chose squeezed middle. Occupy is also a strong candidate for the American Dialect Society’s WOTY, which in recent years has come from the areas of technology (tweet, app) and economics (subprime, bailout).

The Society’s event includes categories such as most useful, creative, unnecessary, outrageous, and euphemistic. You can see why it appeals to people who don’t just use words but track them, study them, and adore them. Read more.

See: MacMillan