Time magazine has named its man of the year (ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani), the United States has its villain of the new century (Osama bin Laden) and now the American Dialect Society is getting ready to vote on its word or phrase of the year.

And while cuddle puddle (a pile of ecstasy users on the floor) is in the running, the smart money is backing phrases like "Ground Zero," "Let's Roll," "9/11," "September 11," "Evil Doers," "Terrible Tuesday" and "Post-September 11" as likely winners when voting takes place on January 4 in a San Francisco hotel at the language group's annual meeting.

While previous years have celebrated such phrases as "millennium bug," "Y2K," "e-commerce" and "chads", the language mavens studying 2001 are as consumed with the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The Dialect Society's Website has nominated more than 20 words and phrases, including some that appeared in print maybe once or twice like "Osamaniac" (a woman sexually attracted to Osama bin Laden).

Besides "Ground Zero," the top 10 words on the list include President George Bush's middle initial "W" in second place with the advisory "The butt of January's political jokes waxes most presidential in September."

《時代》雜志評選出了2001年美國風云人物--前紐約市長朱利安尼，美國鎖定了新世紀的頭號敵人--奧薩馬·本·拉登，如今美國方言協(xié)會也不甘寂寞，正準備進行2001年度美國流行詞語的評選。

1月4日在美國舊金山一家酒店中舉行的語言協(xié)會年會上，2001年的新詞"cuddle puddle （成群的吸毒者）"雖然入選10大流行詞匯的可能性很大，但是更多的人還是支持"Ground Zero（指世貿中心廢墟）", "Let's Roll（"我們開始行動吧！"9·11事件中，美聯(lián)航93次航班上的乘客和機組人員喊出了這句話。為了不讓飛機成為恐怖襲擊的武器，他們與劫機者進行了殊死搏斗，最終飛機墜毀在賓夕法尼亞州彼茲堡郊外）", "9·11", "September 11", "Evil Doers（恐怖分子）", "Terrible Tuesday（黑色星期二，指2001年9月11日美國遭恐怖襲擊的當天）" 和 "Post-September 11（后9·11時代）"等這些和9·11恐怖事件有關的詞匯。

2000年的流行詞語包括"millennium bug（電腦千年蟲病毒）", "Y2K（公元2000年，千年蟲）", "e-commerce（電子商務）" 和 "chads（孔屑，指2000年美國總統(tǒng)大選計票混亂，選票上的孔沒打好）"，但據語言專家研究，2001年的流行詞匯大多源于9月11日發(fā)生的世貿大樓和五角大樓的恐怖襲擊事件。

美國方言協(xié)會在其自己的網頁上登出了20個候選詞語和詞組，其中包括僅在刊物中出現過一兩次的詞語，比如"Osamaniac（瘋狂愛慕本· 拉登的女性）"。

在被提名的10個最流行的詞語中，"Ground Zero" 排在首位，其次是美國總統(tǒng)喬治·布什（George W. Bush）中間名字的第一個字母"W"。美國總統(tǒng)布什在2001年1月就職后，鬧出了不少政治笑話，但9·11事件后，布什成了美國有史以來支持率的總統(tǒng)（《今日美國》、美國有線新聞網和蓋洛普公司在9·11事件發(fā)生后聯(lián)合進行了一次民意測驗，結果顯示，美國總統(tǒng)布什獲得了90%的民眾支持率，成為有史以來蓋洛普民意測驗支持率的總統(tǒng)），布什總統(tǒng)名字中間的 "W" 成為人們常常提到的單詞。

Time magazine has named its man of the year (ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani), the United States has its villain of the new century (Osama bin Laden) and now the American Dialect Society is getting ready to vote on its word or phrase of the year.
And while cuddle puddle (a pile of ecstasy users on the floor) is in the running, the smart money is backing phrases like "Ground Zero," "Let's Roll," "9/11," "September 11," "Evil Doers," "Terrible Tuesday" and "Post-September 11" as likely winners when voting takes place on January 4 in a San Francisco hotel at the language group's annual meeting.

While previous years have celebrated such phrases as "millennium bug," "Y2K," "e-commerce" and "chads", the language mavens studying 2001 are as consumed with the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The Dialect Society's Website has nominated more than 20 words and phrases, including some that appeared in print maybe once or twice like "Osamaniac" (a woman sexually attracted to Osama bin Laden).

Besides "Ground Zero," the top 10 words on the list include President George Bush's middle initial "W" in second place with the advisory "The butt of January's political jokes waxes most presidential in September."

In third place is "Jihad," the Arabic word for "struggle" but which is used today as "Holy War."

"God" is in fourth place with its variations of "Allah" and "Yahweh" with the note that in one form or another the "name has been in more headlines and on the lips of more politicians than any time in recent memory."

"Anthrax" is fifth on the list, followed by "Euro," Europe's new currency, and "Wizard" thanks to the Harry Potter craze.

In eighth place, the long-ignored suffix "stan" makes a comeback as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and thanks to a recent New Yorker cover, a mythical place called "New Yorkistan" which boasts such areas as "Irant and Irate," "Taxistan" and "Fuhgeddabuditstan."

In 9th place is a tribute to talk show host Oprah Winfrey "Oprahization," a term denoting whether something would play on her show or not. And in 10th place is "foot-and-mouth" referring to the disease.

This Website also ranks the colors of the year and not surprisingly in the groundswell of patriotic fervor that followed September 11 the three top colors of 2001 are red, white and blue.

排在第三位的流行詞語是"Jihad"，這個詞語在阿拉伯語中是"奮斗、斗爭"的意思，現在這個詞的意義已經成為我們常見的"Holy War（圣戰(zhàn)）"了。

排在第四位的流行詞語是"God"和它的兩個變體"Allah（阿拉，真主）" 和"Yahweh（耶和華）"。這個詞語之所以當選，是因為近一段時間這個詞"經常出現在新聞標題中，越來越多的政客也常常把它掛在嘴邊"。

"Anthrax（炭疽）"排在第五位，接下來是"Euro（歐元）"--歐元區(qū)國家統(tǒng)一的流通貨幣，此外，受2001年風靡全球的暢銷書《哈里·波特》影響， "Wizard（巫師）"也榜上有名，成為2001年候選流行詞語。

排在第八位的流行詞語其實是一個久已為人們所忽略的后綴 "-stan"，例如Pakistan, Afghanistan等。最絕的要數最近的一期《紐約人》雜志封面杜撰的"New Yorkistan"的地圖，這張地圖分別由"Irant and Irate"， "Taxistan" and "Fuhgeddabuditstan"等地方組成。

"Irant and Irate"， "Taxistan" and "Fuhgeddabuditstan"都是紐約人最常用的口語，Irant 是I complain a lot（煩死我了）的意思，Irate是I am angry（氣死我了），Taxistan是taxi-stan（taxi是叫出租車時的用語），Fuhgeddabuditstan是forget about it（口語中"沒關系""別放在心上"）的意思]。

排在第九位的詞語是"Oprahization"，指某個節(jié)目單元能否在美國脫口秀主持人Oprah Winfrey的節(jié)目中播出。最后，排在第十位的流行詞語是"foot-and-mouth（口蹄疫）"。