I'm almost finally, finally out of words.

Yesterday my boss left for me a list of the most-looked-up words on m-w.com from 2003 to 2006. I found it rather interesting that these most-looked-up words mapped certain trends in culture and language. For example, lots of political words in 2003 and 2004, including "gubernatorial," "partisan," "electoral" and "incumbent." 2005 included "refugee," "levee" and "inept." The word "blog" was number 1 in 2004 (no surprises there). "Quagmire" was in the top ten in 2003 and again in 2006. 2006 also included "insurgent," "sectarian" and "corruption."

The 2007 Words of the Year were just released, and "w00t" is the big winner this year. I can't help but feel like a proud mama a little bit. I've always been a big advocate of the use of this wonderfully silly word, using it alternately ironically and seriously over the past few years, with zeros and without, but almost always in the most annoying high-pitched voice possible.

I use m-w.com so much that it's bookmarked and is also a link on my Firefox toolbar. Sometimes I use it as part of my job, but most of the time it's just for me; sometimes it's for a word I don't know, but most of the time it's for a word I already know well and want to know more about. I'm constantly amazed by all the dimensions and connotations one little word can have. Words surprise me a lot.

I noticed recently that my computer's cache hasn't been cleared in a while. Therefore, I thought I'd share a few of the words I've looked up in the past four months. Wonder what they say about me.

• abashed
• absurd
• acquiesced
• aloof
• apocryphal
• ardours
• assonance

• ballsy
• balustrade
• betrayal
• blase
• blathering

• cachet
• chalice
• clerestory
• compelling
• constituency
• cutesy

• deafening
• decorum
• demands
• depravity
• desolate
• detachment
• dilemma
• disheveled

• egregious
• empirically
• entanglement
• eponymous
• evocative

• famous
• fatalistic
• foreboding
• foresee

• gait
• gavel
• giddiness
• godspeed

• hangout
• harmony
• headway

• implemented
• incenting
• incongruous
• insatiable

• latter
• lest
• limerence
• longevity

• madcap
• mandate
• manoeuvre
• maque choux
• melancholy

• necessary
• nominator

• obsession
• odalisque
• olfactory
• overbearing

• parapet
• perpetuity
• piecemeal
• polyamorous
• pratfall
• preternatural

• ravenous
• recompense
• recurrent
• redeem
• relevance

• scandalize
• sententious
• sordid
• sovay
• supersedes
• sustain
• swoony
• synchronicity

• tawdry
• tickled
• transitory
• turpitude

• uber
• unabashed
• unsavory
• unsustainable

• vestige
• vicissitude
• volatile

• whack

If you're much of a music fan, you can probably tell from these words exactly what I've been listening to these past few months. Which is to say lots of The Decemberists ("balustrade," "odalisque," "parapet"), Feist ("piecemeal"), Nick Drake ("recompense") and Andrew Bird ("apocryphal," "pratfall," "sovay").

w00t.