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Friday, May 21, 2004 Merriam-Webster Announces Top Ten Favorite Words Judging from the responses to a recent "What's Your Favorite Word?" survey conducted on Merriam-Webster OnLine, folks are throwing their troubles out the window right and left-or at least enjoying throwing around the word that means exactly that. Heading the list of Merriam-Webster's Top Ten Favorite Words revealed is "defenestration," a noun derived from the Latin word fenestra (window), and defined by Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary as: "a throwing of a person or thing out of a window." From the thousands of anonymous entries submitted by the site's visitors throughout the month of April, "defenestration" received the most votes by a wide margin, distinguishing itself-among other popular words the likes of "discombobulate," "plethora," and "kerfuffle," as the clear Favorite of all Favorites. 2004 Top Ten Favorite Words defenestration serendipity onomatopoeia discombobulate plethora callipygian juxtapose persnickety kerfuffle flibbertigibbet "Projects like this remind us once again of the deep level of interest that people attach to the words in their language," said Merriam-Webster President and Publisher John M. Morse. "Using language can be a little like serving up a meal, with words as the ingredients. I think people were sharing with us their favorite ingredients -- the ingredients that add spice and flavor and a personal touch to their everyday use of language. The words that people offered were really striking. The common denominator running through many of them was a kind of texture -- an unusual story behind the word, or an interesting sequence of sounds. In fact, many of these words were little poems in themselves. People are clearly drawn to words that have this kind of richness and texture, and fortunately our language is well stocked with them." Merriam-Webster OnLine claims its traffic now exceeds 100 million individual page views per month. On average, the company responds to approximately ten lookup requests in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary or Thesaurus per second. During peak hours, this may increase to more than 100 requests per second. Related Links: · Merriam-Webster OnLine Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter. www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2011 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved.