"Weapons of Mass Deception" A New Phrase of 2003

"If you are a 'metrosexual,' you might also be into 'manscaping.' If you're a 'flexitarian,' no doubt you've tried 'tofurkey. These are among the top words of 2003, so named by the American Dialect Society at its annual conference in Boston recently. To translate: 'metrosexual,' the winner of 'the word or phrase which most colored the nation's language,' is a fashion-conscious heterosexual male, preoccupied with money, clothes and style, and 'manscaping' is male body-shaving. 'Flexitarian,' winner in the most useful category, is a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat; and 'tofurkey' is a faux turkey created from tofu. Every year boasts its own vocabulary, says Dennis Preston, a Michigan State University linguist and past president of the dialect society. ... While 2002's winner was 'weapons of mass destruction,' 2003 brought us 'weapons of mass deception,' an entry Preston says he specifically voted for because it reflected a desire to lessen the nation's collective anxiety. Just how many of these terms have the staying power to make it into U.S. dictionaries in the future is not known; the jury is still out on previous years' words, such as 'chad,' 'blog' and 'Iraqnophobia.' But, despite the cringing of grammar purists, our love affair with slang lives on."