By tracking and analyzing the words people look up in the dictionary, you can get a certain sense of the larger political and cultural landscape in real time. This is something that Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, says he quickly learned when the Springfield-based company first put their dictionary online years ago.
And when it comes to the words that, by his measure, helped define that landscape in the summer of 2018, Sokolowski says the loss of two American titans loomed large. When pop-icon Aretha Franklin died, there was a sudden, unprecedented spike in look-ups for one word: respect.
"Clearly people were connecting with the story of Aretha’s life, with her legacy," said Sokolowski. "They simply looked up the word for — who knows what — more nuance about what it means to have respect."
The word maverick also reigned supreme following the death of John McCain. Notably, this term, so closely associated with a singular American individual, was itself introduced into the language thanks to another, lesser-known, American individual.
"Sam Maverick, who died in 1870, was an American pioneer," explained Sokolowki.
Maverick, a Texas lawyer and land baron, refused to brand his cattle. As a result, any unbranded cattle — not identifiable as part of any particular herd — quickly became known as a "maverick."
"And ultimately, as kind of a figurative meaning, it means an independent individual who doesn’t go along with a group or a party," said Sokolowski.
Pop and celebrity culture moved the needle at times this summer. “Feckless” spiked back in June, thanks to comments Samantha Bee made on her late-night show about Ivanka Trump. So did the word “abhorrent,” when ABC used the term to describe Roseanne Barr’s now infamous tweet in its official statement canceling her show. But, Sokolowski said by his measure, the summer of 2018 was clearly dominated by politics.
"Needless to say, these have been very newsy times and very much vocabulary driven in the sense that our data shows a lot of activity this summer," he said.
The high-profile trial of Paul Manafort was watched closely by many Americans, with a single moment vaulting two separate terms to the top of the charts.
"The words 'oligarch' and 'pejorative' were also looked up," said Sokolowski. "The word oligarch was used by the prosecution and the judge stopped them and said, you can’t use the word oligarch, because that’s a pejorative term."
And when the deliberating jury in that trial sent a note to the judge asking for clarity about the meaning of the term “reasonable doubt,” Americans en masse wanted clarity too.
"When one of the top news stories in the country is about the definition of a word, you better believe that that’s a word the public is also curious about the definition for," said Sokolowski.
The 2018 midterm elections also seem to have caught the public’s attention this summer. In particular, the democratic primary in New York’s 14th district, where Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise win drove look-ups of the word “socialism.”
"And that’s important because, you know, when I was a kid in the 1980s it was unthinkable that an American politician at the state or national level would use the word socialist to describe themselves," said Sokolowski. "And yet today, clearly after Bernie Sanders' candidacy, it’s a word that has a different meaning — a post-Cold War meaning — for Americans and in American politics."
Other stories seemed to rise above the clutter as well. The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court led to big spikes in look-ups for the words "Jesuit" (Kavanaugh attended, and taught at, Jesuit schools) and "SCOTUS" (a shorthand term for the U.S. Supreme Court).
But perhaps the word of the summer is one that has been looked up in record numbers for months and, by the looks of things, might well continue to be well into the fall.
"Tariff," said Sokolowski. "Tariff was the big word. The tariffs imposed on trading partners, China, Europe and Canada, especially, made people go to the dictionary and look up the word tariff."
Of course, there’s no tariff on the use of Merriam Webster’s online dictionary, so when a word in the news piques your curiosity, feel free to look it up.
