Merriam-Webster Announced the Best Words. We Have Some Opinions.
As a child, I used to read the dictionary. There I said it. I was the nerdiest kid alive. Good thing I can (kinda) monetize my love of words.
Over this last week, one of my favorite word-masters, the Merriam-Webster Twitter account, helped us warm up our voting muscles and asked followers to pick superlative words in various categories. Saying this contest was the best thing on the internet feels untrue, given it fell in the same week as the magic of the DNC Georgia roll call, but as a lover of sesquipedalian and pithy words alike, it’s a nice way to break up the feed. However, I do believe knowing the true meaning and feeling behind words is vitally important these days, more so than in the past.
So far, Merriam-Webster has determined, through popular vote alone (check-marked aka verified accounts don’t get more electoral votes), that the most overrated word is “literally,” while the most underrated word is “no.” While I’m all for precision of language and therefore might agree with literally, I think it might also fit nicely in the yet-to-be-decided “word you’ve been using wrong” box. At first, I didn’t get the choice of “no” as the most underrated word until I remembered that I’m a formally gifted and talented eldest daughter and saying no to things makes me feel like a bad person. Boundaries ARE underrated.