It’s that time of year again, and Berkeley linguist Geoffrey Nunberg has anointed “tribal” as the word that most defines 2017.
As is traditional, Nunberg revealed his Word of the Year on NPR’s Fresh Air show and its website. He explains:
Geoffrey Nunberg
Collins Dictionary chose “Fake news” and Dictionary.com went with “complicit.” Others have proposed #metoo, “alternative facts,” “take a knee,” “resistance” and “snowflake.”
It’s striking how many of those are the words and phrases that warring political camps have been hurling at each other across our deepening national divide. The Trump presidency didn’t create that rift but it sort of made it official.
The word “tribal” isn’t a new word, Nunberg continues. “But in one form or another, it has become the ubiquitous diagnosis for most of our political ills,” he writes.