When more than 300 language scholars crammed into a conference room in Austin, Texas, last week, they were gathering for an annual ritual mixing solemnity and levity: the American Dialect Society’s selection of the Word of the Year.

As chair of the society’s New Words Committee, I have been overseeing the Word of the Year vote for six years now. After more than an hour of lively, heated discussion, we emerged with our choice for the top word of 2016: “dumpster fire.”

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