The most looked-up words of 2012


USA Today: Democracy, globalization, marriage and bigot — all touched by politics — made the Top 10, in no particular order. Read more to find out the top two looked up words of 2012.

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USA Today: Democracy, globalization, marriage and bigot — all touched by politics — made the Top 10, in no particular order. Read more to find out the top two looked up words of 2012.

Thanks to the election, socialism and capitalism are forever wed as Merriam-Webster’s most looked-up words of 2012.

Traffic for the unlikely pair on the company’s website about doubled this year from the year before as the health care debate heated up and discussion intensified over “American capitalism” versus “European socialism,” said the editor at large, Peter Sokolowski.

The choice revealed Wednesday was “kind of a no-brainer,” he said. The side-by-side interest among political candidates and around kitchen tables prompted the dictionary folk to settle on two words of the year rather than one for the first time since the accolade began in 2003.

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