Merriam-Webster dictionary chooses ‘they’ as its word of the year

NEW YORK — A common but increasingly mighty and busy little word, “they,” has an accolade all its own.

The language mavens at Merriam-Webster have declared the personal pronoun their word of the year based on a 313% increase in lookups on the company’s search site, Merriam-Webster.com, this year when compared with 2018.

“I have to say it’s surprising to me,” said Peter Sokolowski, a lexicographer and Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, ahead of Tuesday’s announcement. “It’s a word we all know and love. So many people were talking about this word.”

Sokolowski and his team monitor spikes in searches and “they” got an early start last January with the rise of model Oslo Grace on top fashion runways. The Northern Californian identifies as transgender nonbinary, walking in both men’s and women’s shows around the world.

Another lookup spike occurred in April, when Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., got emotional while talking of her gender-nonconforming child during a House committee hearing as she advocated for LGBTQ rights legislation.

Merriam-Webster recently added a new definition to its online dictionary to reflect use of “they” as relating to a person whose gender identity is nonbinary. In October, the American Psychological Association endorsed “they” as a singular third-person pronoun in its latest style guide for scholarly writing.

The American Dialect Society, which is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, named “they” its word of the year for 2015.

In September, Merriam-Webster experienced another big increase in lookups for “they” when pop star Sam Smith wrote on social media that their preferred pronouns were “they” and “them.”

And the Merriam-Webster runners-up to word of the year?

They include “quid pro quo,” “impeach” and “crawdad,” the latter a word in the title of Delia Evans bestselling novel, “Where the Crawdads Sing.” The list also included “egregious,” “clemency” and “the,” a shocker of a lookup spike when Ohio State University attempted to patent the word to protect its turf. It failed.

Also in the mix: “snitty,” which emerged on the lips of Attorney General William Barr in reference to a letter by Robert Mueller about a summary Barr wrote of the Mueller report.

We have Washington Post columnist George Will to thank for “tergiversation.” The word, meaning an evasion or a desertion, was Merriam-Webster’s top lookup Jan. 24 after Will used it in a column in reference to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

The words “camp” and “exculpate” rounded out the list.