Unword

The term unword is a catchphrase from the field of language criticism and denotes an “unattractive” but also an “undesirable” word.

Germany

→ Main article : Unwort of the year (Germany)

The term became popular in Germany through the Society for German Language , which selects the German word of the year and also publishes a word of the year . The “Unwort of the Year” campaign defines the Unwort as “[…] words and formulations from public language that are factually grossly inappropriate and possibly even violate human dignity .” The jury of the “Sprachkritische Aktion” has been judging the Unwort of the Year annually since 1991 Unword of the Year ”at the University of Frankfurt am Main.

“ Human material ” was defined as a nonsense of the 20th century . There is also a word on the stock exchange .

Liechtenstein

→ Main article : "Unwort des Jahres" in the article Wort des Jahres (Liechtenstein)

In Liechtenstein since 2002 .

Austria

→ Main article : "Unwort des Jahres" in the article Wort des Jahres (Austria)

Since 1999, the University of Graz has been identifying unwords of the year in Austria as part of the Austrian German project .

Switzerland

→ Main article : Unword of the year (Switzerland)

In Switzerland, from 2003 to 2016, a private jury determined a bad word of the year .

Other languages

The American Dialect Society selects a Word of the Year in various categories, including the negative prizes "Most Unnecessary", "Most Outrageous", "Most Euphemistic" and "Least Likely to Succeed" ( unsuccessful).

See also

• Language fan of the year
• Word of the year (South Tyrol)

literature

• Words and non-words. Meaningful and nonsensical in contemporary German. Published by the Society for German Language. Falken-Verlag, Niedernhausen 1993, ISBN 3-8068-1401-5 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Unword  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Website of the Unwort des Jahres campaign
• The tenacious life of the Lingua Tertii Imperii
• Horst Dieter Schlosser: Unword of the year. Goethe University Frankfurt , accessed on April 27, 2010 (information on a language-critical campaign). 
• FAZ (2013): Non-words with an abyss background (from the series Fraktur - Die Sprachglosse )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Unword . In: Duden, The German Spelling . 1996
2. ^ Language-critical campaign Unwort des Jahres. General.
3. ↑ Austrian Word of the Year ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Word of the Year. Archive. ( Memento from December 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) chwort.ch