Un-word of the year (, ) is an annual selection of one new or recently popularized term that allegedly violates human rights or infringes upon

democratic principles Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

, made by a panel of German

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures ...

. The term may be one that discriminates against societal groups or may be

euphemistic A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...

, disguising or misleading. The term is chosen from suggestions sent in by the public. The choice of the word does not depend on how many times it was suggested, but reflects the judgement of the panel. The core of the panel consists of four linguists and one journalist. The un-word of the previous year is announced every January. The linguistic action was started in 1994 by the linguist . The yearly publication of the "un-words of the year" is today widely reported in German media and very popular among Germans. In 2007, the president of the German PEN association, Johano Strasser, criticized the selections as being "themselves a symptom of the language neglect that it pretends to be able to heal" and having the quality of ''

Deutschland sucht den Superstar ''Deutschland sucht den Superstar'' (''DSDS''; "Germany is looking for the Superstar") is a German reality talent show. Part of the ''Idol'' franchise, it was created by British media mogul Simon Fuller as a spin-off from the British show ''P ...

'' (a popular German talent show).

History

Between 1991 and 1993, the un-word was announced by the ''

Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache The ' (, ''Association for the German Language''), or , is Germany's most important government-sponsored language society. Its headquarters are in Wiesbaden. Re-founded shortly after the Second World War in 1947, the is politically independent ...

'', alongside the Word of the Year. In 1994, following a row with the then German government led by

Helmut Kohl Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as chancellor of Germany and governed the ''Federal Republic'' from 1982 to 1998. He was leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to ...

, the jury led by linguist Horst Dieter Schlosser decided to become independent of any state-funded institution.

List of un-words of the year since 1991

1990s

In 1999, the jury chose as un-word of the 20th century.

2000s

2010s

2020s

References

{{Authority control Word of the year German language 1992 establishments in Germany Ironic and humorous awards