'The society defined "to pluto" as "to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet." '
Winners of other catagories include: Most unnecessary category-"Surikat"; Most outrageous category-"Cambodian accessory; Most euphemistic category-"Waterboarding". If these catch your fancy, you can visit the links.
Culture is directly related to the way we perceive our world to which meaning shared by members of society have been attached. The attached meaning/value-attribute of word evolves with the constantly changing socio-political landscape of a given culture. As The American Dialect Society pointed out, "winning words or phrases don't have to be brand new; what's important is that they gained new prominence in the past year".
Macquarie dictionary (Australia) are also conducting an on-line survey, it would be interesting to compare the different values of the two cultural communities when the result comes out. The link between culture and language.
Each language articulates or organises the
world differently because different cultures take on different
emotions and attitudes when they conceptualise their experiences
or ideas and these are transmitted through their languages.
We must be equipped with an intercultural awareness besides
the language itself because target readers’ expectations
differ by their linguistic conventions as well as their cultural
norms... read more about this blog
