The Word of the Year Is Because Because

The American Dialect Society has voted “because” the Word of the Year for 2013, because “because is now being used in new ways to introduce a noun, adjective, or other part of speech.” No matter how annoying you think it is, because is definitely very hot right now.

The win comes after a year in which because began to be used acceptably without “of” or other qualifiers. Though because was voted overwhelmingly the most notable word of the year, other words that received votes were selfie, twerk and Obamacare. Catfish was voted most creative, though it had stiff competition from doge. Most Unnecessary word went to sharknado (cronut didn’t even come close to winning that race) and Most Outrageous went to our good friend underbutt (revenge porn and thigh gap lost).

The words that were hot have one thing in common: they all have gotten popular due to ubiquity on the internet. Most Productive (?) went to -shaming (like slut-shaming), though -splaining (like mansplaining) also got plenty of votes.

And fresh off his win as Time magazine’s Person of the Year, the American Name Society has voted Francis the Name of the Year for 2013. Because Francis. Sorry, that was painful, but we’re done. For right now.