And the Winner Is....

True to seasonal fashion, it's once again appropriate to play that all-American pastime: creating lists that document the BEST THINGS OF THE YEAR!!

I think our culture likes doing this every December because it's one way to see how life has moved forward; when summarizing the best, worst, and weirdest events, we prove to ourselves once again that we have made progress over the previous year. (Whether or not we have made any positive advancements is an entirely different question...)

Let's set aside commentary on "normal" compilations like "Top 10 Songs of 2007." You can find those in any magazine, written by any wannabe DJ, and frankly, they're all equally boring. Better is the Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Year. This year's winner? Locavore, as in a person who eats seasonally-available foods, buys locally-grown ingredients, and shuns the addition of preservatives and carbon emissions that are necessitated when food is flown to the eater from thousands of miles away. Having just finished the thought-provoking Omnivore's Dilemma, and having pledged myself to attempt to be a locavore in so far as my meager budget will allow, I am quite pleased that this word made it in vogue.

(However, outside the tree-hugging community, it seems that not everyone was enthralled about this choice. One disgruntled reader posted a NY Times blog commentary that was a pointed critique of the OED's choice. It reads: "What about vajayjay? Didn’t you folks just do an article on that gem of a word? I mean come on. Who doesn’t love vajayjay?")

He makes quite a compelling case, but the do-gooder in me still says supporting the emerging local-foods movement was a pretty damn good pick, particularly for 2007, year of the Bali climate change talks, PowerShift, and Al Gore's well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize. As long as we are interested in commemorating each passing year by noting its most positive achievements, in hopes of passing those trends on to future generations, or at least continuing them in 2008, this pick by the OED seems like a very fitting tribute to an enviro-conscious year.