When <em>Canola</em> Was a New Word
The Atlantic’s Word Watch column cataloged terms that dictionary editors were keeping their eye on.
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You can tell a lot about a cultural moment by the words it invents. New phenomena, products, social movements, and moods require new language, and an idea without a name is unlikely to stick. The job of a dictionary is to be: .) Language conjures moments, but it also creates them.
