Dictionary.com Picks 'Misinformation' As Word of the Year

Misinformation was chosen Monday as Dictionary.com's word of the year. 'Jane Solomon, a linguist-in-residence at Dictionary, said in a recent interview that her site's choice of 'mis' over 'dis' was deliberate, intended to serve as a 'call to action' to be vigilant in the battle against fake news, flat earthers and anti-vaxxers, among other conduits,' reports CBS News. From the report: It's the idea of intent, whether to inadvertently mislead or to do it on purpose, that the Oakland, California-based company wanted to highlight. The company decided it would go high when others have spent much of 2018 going low. 'The rampant spread of misinformation is really providing new challenges for navigating life in 2018,' Solomon told The Associated Press ahead of the word of the year announcement. 'Misinformation has been around for a long time, but over the last decade or so the rise of social media has really, really changed how information is shared. We believe that understanding the concept of misinformation is vital to identifying misinformation as we encounter it in the wild, and that could ultimately help curb its impact.'

'Disinformation would have also been a really, really interesting word of the year this year, but our choice of misinformation was very intentional,' she said. 'Disinformation is a word that kind of looks externally to examine the behavior of others. It's sort of like pointing at behavior and saying, 'THIS is disinformation.' With misinformation, there is still some of that pointing, but also it can look more internally to help us evaluate our own behavior, which is really, really important in the fight against misinformation. It's a word of self-reflection, and in that it can be a call to action. You can still be a good person with no nefarious agenda and still spread misinformation.' Some of the runners-up include 'representation,' 'self-made,' and 'backlash.'

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