John M. Berry

Media Hype Boosts 'Subprime' to Linguists' 'Word of the Year'

By Jeff Poor | January 7, 2008 - 18:07

Never underestimate the power of the media with a "doom and gloom" agenda - especially when it comes to such a renowned contest like the 18th annual American Dialect Society "Word of the Year" contest.

Over the past nine months, whenever there's any sort of economic turmoil in the world, the point that failures occurred in the subprime housing market is at least mentioned, if not blasted in the headline.

"‘Subprime' has been around with bankers for awhile, but now everyone is talking about ‘subprime,'" said Wayne Glowka, a spokesman for the group and a dean at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Ga. "It's affecting all kinds of people in all kinds of places."