Politictionary, anyone?

It is a well-known fact that I love words. And I am fortunate to be in a line of work where words, whether wielded as weapons or used as tools for building and productivity, are appropriately revered and agonized over. It's not uncommon for me to hit up merriamwebster.com 10 times a day, in search of just the right word to consummately convey that very specific idea.

I recently stumbled across Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year "Truthiness" -- a satirical term coined by comedic commentator, Stephen Colbert, and often used by Colbert and others bent on mocking the President and denigrating his every move.

1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)

Truthiness was the readers' top pick from the ten words the folks at Merriam-Webster deemed to be the most worthy of recognition. The other contenders?

google
decider
war
insurgent
terrorism
vendetta
sectarian
quagmire
corruption

Crimony! Was 2006 a political year, or what? The midterm elections were largely painted as a referendum on the President and the War in Iraq -- did this bleed over into Merriam-Webster's nerdy word contest?

This is interesting to me, though, because I think it heartily demonstrates the effect that the steady drum-beat of message (in this case, that put forth by a largely anti-war, anti-Bush, and often anti-Republican media) can have on collective consciousness.

For better or worse, we consume, digest, and -- as evidenced above -- regurgitate the information we're served.