Hypermiling has been selected as the Oxford Word of the Year 2008, or WOTY, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary's blog. It says the word was coined in 2004 by Wayne Gerdes, to mean the "attempting to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one's car and one's driving techniques."
Many will be sad to hear that rickrolling didn't even make the shortlist, but at least it's better than the Americans managed last year, which was locavore.
The technology industries did manage to get three words on this year's shortlist: tweet, linkbait and one I've never heard of: CarrotMob or carrot mob:
a flashmob type of gathering, in which people are invited via the Net to all support and reward a local small ethical business such as a shop or café by all patronizing it at the same time. Also as noun, carrotmobbing.
We could also claim one of the finalists: "moofer -- a mobile out of office worker -- ie someone who works away from a fixed workplace, via Blackberry/laptop/wi-fi etc. (also verbal noun, moofing)"
Previous "Words of the Year" include bovvered (2006), biosecurity (2005), chav (2004), karaoke (1979), bikini (1947), T-shirt (1920), camouflage (1917) and muckraking (1906). However, it looks as though these were selected with the benefit of hindsight by Susie Dent for a book, The Language Report.
Anyway, was hypermiling the best choice, and if not, what should have won? Your suggestions please….
Update: As goweb points out in a comment, The Register is letting you Vote now for your top net neologism
