An online poll was recently conducted to determine the public’s favourite words that came into use this year.
The poll showed that two expressions which held great currency this year in Russia were “anticrisis” and “swine flu”. The word “Medveputia”, used to refer to the Medvedev-Putin tandem, also proved popular.
Other new words included “chatter-porter” – used to describe a reporter who talks too much – and “zombie box”, referring to a TV.
Meanwhile, the word “funemployed” arose to describe someone taking advantage of losing one's job to pursue other interests.
And other new crisis-related terms were “hunger generating enterprises” and “newly poor”.
The word “birther” – used to refer to conspiracy theorist who disputes that President Obama was born in the United States – was at the top of the list in the US.
However, top spot went to “unfriend”, which means to remove someone from one’s friends list on the social networking website Facebook.