"because reasons," "because awesome"). 2014: #blacklivesmatter: hashtag used as protest over blacks killed at the hands of police (esp. Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York). 2015: Singular they (as a gender-neutral pronoun, especially for non-binary gender identities) 2016: dumpster fire (an exceedingly disastrous or chaotic situation) 2017: fake news (disinformation or falsehoods presented as real news or actual news that is claimed to be untrue) 2018: tender age shelter (a euphemism for facilities in which children of asylum seekers are detained by government officials) 2019: (my) pronouns, as used in the context of introducing the correct third-person pronouns to refer to an individual. 2020: Covid, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2021: insurrection, referring to the January 6 attacks on the US Capitol. 2022: -ussy (suffix derived from pussy) At the end of each decade, the society also chooses a Word of the Decade: web for the 1990s, google (as a verb) for the 2000s, and singular they for the 2010s. In 2000, jazz was selected as "Word of the 20th Century", and she as "Word of the Past Millennium". Selection Other candidates for "Word of the Year" have included: 2006: Plutoed beat "climate canary" (something whose poor health indicates a looming environmental catastrophe) in a run-off vote for the 2006 word of the year. Other words in the running were flog (an advertisement disguised as a blog or web log), The Decider (a political catchphrase said by former United States President George W. Bush), "prohibited liquids" (fluids that cannot be transported by passengers on airplanes), and macaca (an American citizen treated as an alien) 2007: Among the contenders were green- (a designation of environmental concern, as in greenwashing), surge (an increase in troops in a war zone, as in the Iraq War troop surge of 2007), Facebook (all parts of speech), waterboarding (an interrogation technique in which the subject is immobilized and doused with water to simulate drowning), Googlegänger (a portmanteau of Google and Doppelgänger, meaning a person with your name who shows up when you google yourself), and wide stance, "to have a —" (to be hypocritical or to express two conflicting points of view, in reference to Senator Larry Craig after his 2007 arrest at an airport) 2010: Nom lost in a run-off with app 2011: 99%, 99 percenters and the acronym FoMO (fear of missing out) lost in a run-off