"TRUTHINESS" from the multi-Emmy nominated "The Colbert Report" was named the Top Television Buzzword of the year in The Global Language Monitor's annual survey of words from television that profoundly influenced the English Language.
"The Colbert Report" is a nightly news commentary programme on Comedy Central that stars Stephen Colbert. The show focuses on Colbert's take on current events in politics and the media.
In a section called "W?RD" during the first episode of the Report, Colbert featured the term "truthiness", which he defined as "the quality by which one purports to know something emotionally or instinctively, without regard to evidence or intellectual examination". In January this year, the American Dialect Society announced that "truthiness" was selected as its 2005 "Word of the Year".
"Wikiality", also from the Colbert Report was named No. 2, derived from the user-compiled Wikipedia information Web site. "Wikiality" is defined as "reality as determined by majority vote" .
"Television, once again, has helped to define our culture and its impact upon spoken English is profound," said Paul JJ Payack, President of the Global Language Monitor. "Some of these buzzwords will quickly pass, while others will be embedded in the language for years to come."
"Though 'truthiness' in some form has existed in the language for centuries, it could not have been revived in more relevant times than the early 21st century; while 'wikiality' can be observed even today, where Pluto has been voted out of the Solar System by a convention of astronomers," Payack concluded.
California-based Global Language Monitor analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture.
The Top TeleWORDS
1. Truthiness: Truth unencumbered by the facts.
2. Wikiality: Reality as determined by majority vote.
3. Katrina: Continuing stories about the hurricane's destruction.
4. Katie: Katie Couric is an American journalist and media personality. This year she left NBC (National Broadcasting Company) and moved into the nightly news anchor role at CBS(Columbia Broadcasting System) News.
5. Dr. McDreamy: a nickname given to the character Dr. Derek Shepherd on the hot show "Grey's Anatomy", an American popular drama centred on the lives of five surgical interns and their supervisors.
