What's the word?

Meh.

This wishy-washy expression of nebulosity, a succinct response of ambivalence, indifference and undistinguishedness, came into its own in 2007.

Easier to type than to pronounce, this word, if it can be called that, has been around at least since a 1995 episode of

The Simpsons

(taking longer to filter into the national syllabic consciousness than its more famous cousin,

d'oh

), but it seemed everywhere this year.

Meh

was featured as a word of the day at urbandictionary.com, racking up more popular "thumbs up" votes than any word in 2007. It appeared in blog posts, news (and sports) stories, and T-shirts from London to Philadelphia.

But, on the eve of that noted annual word-sleuth confab, the American Dialect Society (ADS) vote for its "Word(s) of the Year," tomorrow in Chicago, another very non-meh phrase has captured the attention of at least one noted wordmeister: "

Don't tase me bro

!"

(Meaning something like, "Back off with the stun gun, Officer, I have a right to question Sen. John Kerry!")

"Twenty-five years ago, you say that, people have no idea what you're talking about," said Wayne Glowka, chair of the ADS's new words committee and a dean at Reinhardt College in Georgia. "You can buy T-shirts with that on it. It struck me and other people as a signal term."

That, and another 2007 signal phrase, "

Leave Britney alone!

" both came to prominence on YouTube, naturally, the Britney one a blubbering plea for everyone to just back off their favorite

celebutard

(another 2007 Glowka word meaning "stupid famous female"). Both phrases were very 2007 in that they were, or were not, put-ons of some measure. (Locally, perhaps, we have "

Free Alycia Lane

!")

Which brings us to a word whose redefinition seemed complete in 2007:

reality

.

Wrote Tom and Lorenzo, the brilliantly snarky (does anyone say

snarky

anymore?) Philadelphia bloggers at Project Rungay, ruminating on a

Project Runway

decision to reinstate an already-aufed contestant, whom they call Sissy Bear: " . . . one thing we always bear in mind to prevent tearing our hair out is THIS IS A REALITY SHOW. They can do whatever . . . they want to make it more entertaining."

Reality

, in these obsessive circles, signals "an environment in which it is OK to impose arbitrary rules to increase drama." Kind of profound, really. A faux-reality.

(Project Rungay readers also came up with this new gem:

titscrepancy

, to describe breasts of mismatched proportions.)

Speaking of women, several of the top wordsters at the Dialect Society dubiously took their cues from Don Imus and put

ho

,

nappy-headed ho

, and the like on their word of the year (WOTY) lists for 2007. Oprah and

Grey's Anatomy

gave us

vajayjay

as a word for female genitalia.

Astronaut diaper

was another unfortunate word discovery, as in what you need to be a cross-country stalker. On the male side, Sen. Larry Craig gave us these fun terms for gay men:

toe-tapper

and

wide-stance

.

Last year, the ADS picked

plutoed

, as in being demoted in status like the ex-planet, as its word of the year, which didn't really catch on.

Erin McKean, another top wordmonger, last year touted

carbon neutral

. She likes

locavore

this year, which the Oxford Dictionary picked as its word of the year, to describe someone who eats food of local origin. "A lot of people have not liked it because they don't think it's spelled right," McKean said. "They want it to be

localvore

. Or they think

locavore

is someone who eats crazy people."

McKean also likes

brick

(as in a verb meaning to render an electronic device nonfunctional),

hypermiler

(someone who tries to maximize gas mileage),

griefer

(someone who promotes discord in online communities),

aging in place

(aging at home with services brought in), and

bacn

, the kind of e-mail spam you signed up for yourself.

Grant Barrett, vice president of the ADS and editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, put

earmarxist

on his list to refer to a legislator who adds earmarks, money designated for a particular person or group, to a bill. This is a red-state term for Democrats, an alternative to the old

logroller

.

Barrett also cites

forever stamp

as a new term,

life-stream

, to make a constant digital record of one's own life in video, sound, pictures and text, and the suffix

-hawk

, indicating a haircut similar to a mohawk, popularized by

American Idol

guy Sanjaya's

ponyhawk

, and Eagles guard Shawn Andrews'

brohawk

.

In the text abbreviation category, Barrett likes

FTW

, to mean For the Win, a phrase from

Hollywood

Squares

that has found ironic new life online. In the tween division of instant-message speak, we had

IDK

(I don't know),

Mhm

(which, I am told, means something like, yeah, OK, whatever you say, stop texting me, Mom)

BFF

(best friend forever), and

TISNF

! (that is so not fair), come to glory courtesy of that runaway cell-phone commercial.

On a more serious note, in the military sphere, Barrett cites

splurge

as a soldier nickname for the troop surge, and

post-kinetic environment

, jargon for the site of an explosion, severe gunfire or a destructive engagement. Several lists had

truther

: someone who espouses a conspiracy theory about the events of 9/11.

Laura Bush gave prominence to the phrase

windshield cowboy

referring to her husband - a cattle rancher who works while driving a pickup truck instead of a horse - which Barrett defines as a "mildly deprecating term for an aspiring rancher who is considered a pretender."

Lexicographer David Barnhart of Lexik House Publishers, puts

CFL

on his list, for energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulb, and

cringe reading

, the reading aloud to a group from one's unedited private diary. He likes

cut and walk

, to stop doing something and leave, albeit without haste, and

dwell time

, the period of time someone spends away from the battlefield. He cites

e-mailitis

, excessive dependence upon e-mail, while Barrett cites

e-mail bankruptcy

, a term that refers to the point where a person abandons all attempts to deal with an overstuffed inbox. This may be helped by the new

no-email Friday

concept.

Glowka is touting

global warming

as his 2007 WOTY. While not new, obviously, the phrase became ubiquitous and its meaning evolved pointedly and apocalyptically, he says. He defines it as "belief that human behavior deemed environmentally irresponsible will lead to the end of the world as we know it."

Glowka also cites

General Betray Us

as a newsy phrase that penetrated the common political consciousness,

Sushi

, a Muslim blurring the distinction between Sunni and Shiite, and, a good one,

Googleganger

, a person with your name who shows up in your googling of yourself. (Noted immunologist and protein therapeutic researcher Dr. Amy S. Rosenberg, you are so much more worthy . . .)