Merriam-Webster ’s New Words Perfectly Sum Up America’s Political Climate

Merriam-Webster announced Monday that about 250 new terms were added to the dictionary’s ranks. Newly defined words often reflect people’s preoccupations — whether in technology or pop culture— and several terms in this batch reflect America’s current political climate. Merriam-Webster has, for example, been tracking alt-right since the term gained prominence during the 2016 election, and editors have seen spikes in attempted lookups for the term in recent months. The term is now defined in the dictionary as follows: alt-right: a right-wing, primarily online political movement or grouping based in the U.S. whose members reject mainstream conservative politics and espouse extremist beliefs and policies typically centered on ideas of white nationalism While editors also saw a spike for alt-left after President Donald Trump used the term in August following clashes of protesters in Charlottesville, editors say that term remains on their watchlist for now. It often takes time for a word’s definition to settle and for it to be clear that a word is going to stick around. Another newly added term is dog whistle, a phrase people use to identify what they see as coded political messages that are “speaking to a particular audience that’s supposed to pick up on a frequency that others won’t hear,” as linguist Ben Zimmer has said. dog whistle: an expression or statement that has a secondary meaning intended to be understood only...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized alt right Donald Trump language Source Type: news