Subprime' Is Linguists' Word of Year

[DeeDeeNY]

Jan 5, 7:56 AM (ET)

By SOPHIA TAREEN

CHICAGO (AP) - Even the American Dialect Society knows how risky home mortgages are these days. The group of wordsmiths chose "subprime" as 2007's Word of the Year at its annual convention Friday.

"'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."

About 80 members of the organization spent two days debating the merits of runners-up "Facebook,""green,""Googleganger" and "waterboarding" before voting for an adjective that means "a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage or investment."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080105/D8TVNU680.html