Editorial: A shovel-ready glossary from 2009

No less than the Global Language Monitor (GLM) has declared "Twitter" the top word of 2009, beating out the likes of unfriend, hadron, H1N1 and 2.0. It seems that next generation words are now permitted to arrive on the scene without any letters at all (making them incredibly easy to spell). Apparently, it doesn't take much to get into the English language. It's the fastest growing language in the world, adding a word every 98 minutes. By GLM's count, our language topped the 1 million word threshold last June. That's a lot of words. No wonder we have so much trouble understanding one another. To lessen the confusion, this page has assembled its favorite words and phrases of the past year and placed them in a helpful glossary. On the ground - The place where decisions are made.

Shovel-ready - A chain of hardware stores in several southwestern states.

Credit default swaps - Stupid things that smart people do. (Left over from 2008; still not well understood.)

Boots on the ground - The reason decisions must be made on the ground.

TARP - A piece of canvas used to cover up mistakes.

Claw back - A major motion picture; Bernie Madoff and Tom Petters hatch a plot to break out of prison and start a business together.

Pandemic - A pathological fear of panda bears.

Health care reform - Making a bad system accessible to more people.

Apps - They provide answers you used to know.

Takeaway - Your retirement savings, Michael Jackson and the Minnesota Vikings.

Unallot - What Republican governors do when they run for president.

9 iron - Commonly used on cheating husbands, as in, "She went 9 iron on him."

Transparency - Keith Ellison's approach to detailing privately-paid travel expenses -- once a U.S. House ethics panel made it the only option.

3G network - Any three guys out for a beer.

Dithering - What a president does when he makes deliberate decisions about sending troops "into harm's way." A ditherer: One who dithers; opposite of a decider.

New normal - Working harder for less money, and feeling lucky about it.

Death panels - A provision in President Obama's health care legislation that requires government bureaucrats to deny medical treatment to regular viewers of Fox News.

Tea party - Any large group that gathers for tea and conversation in which no one agrees to pick up the tab.

Algorithm - Al Gore on the dance floor.

Sexting - Tiger Woods on any floor.

Balloon Boy - A child who hides while his parents make fools of themselves.

Salahi - It's what you say at a party when meeting new people; a common greeting, usually accompanied by a deep bow.

Wise Latina woman - The Denver grandmother who figured out that Balloon Boy was a hoax.

Birthers - People who believe that Glenn Beck was born on the planet Earth in 1964.

Lizard people - A new political party inspired by fascination with the Minnesota "recount process."

Rogue - A maverick, usually from Alaska.