Worms, Roxanne! Worms!
New Oxford American Dictionary blog editor Lauren Appelwick is reporting “refudiate” as the 2010 Word of the Year, joining past recipients “unfriend”, “truthiness” and so many other wonders of the internet age. Lexicographer Susie Dent makes her subjective choice each year (many collected here). As she is employed by the Oxford University Press, additional credibility is lent to her selections I can only assume by virtue of “Oxford” and “University” being used in the same sentence. Thus, an internet search for “word of the year” often tags the “Oxford” or “Oxford Dictionary” or some similar modifier to the “WOTY”.
I have fun fracturing the mother tongue all the time. But I don’t expect any of my misconstruations to make their way into the lexicon of American English. Particulalry when they are disavowed as mistypes then claimed intentional.
I don’t know about you, but for me, “Oxford” unfairly or 
not conjures up images of staid and primped stuffed shirts. Make no mistake. They never got over our insurrection and are mocking us again. And that is ginormously discombobulating.
