Meep! Defining the buzzwords of 2009

Language experts all over the world have recently been publishing the words that defined the past year. The New York Times list of buzzwords of 2009 includes one of my favorites: "meep", a nonsense word used by young people instead of the words they don't want to say. It is the only word spoken by Beaker, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's sensitive and accident-prone lab assistant on The Muppet Show. Beaker, by the way, is named for a lab utensil, the beaker, a glass vessel for measuring and pouring liquids. What Beaker says sounds more like "mi" (as in "doh, rey, mi, fah, soh, lah, te, doh"), but it is spelled (and has gone viral as) "meep". Just listen to his wonderful Ode to Joy:

According to the Urban Dictionary, "Meep can mean whatever you want it to mean." The word may become as successful as "meh", that expression of boredom from a 2001 episode of The Simpsons that made it into The Collins English Dictionary in 2008.

We have a dozen evocative words of 2009 for you, plus four very typical words from the past decade. These words are far easier to define than "meep", yet at least as good to know. Come see if they ring a bell, and select the best definition for each one on the next page.

Anne Hodgson