"Merriam-Webster said "blog" headed the list of most looked-up terms on its site during the last twelve months." See BBC News for December 1, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4059291.stm [thanks to Hank Pfeil for sending this]
According the article, the top ten words were:
- blog
- incumbent
- electoral
- insurgent
- hurricane
- cicada
- peloton
- partisan
- sovereignty
- defenestration
Number ten fired off a synapse from deep within my neo-cortex. I remember my old History of Germany professor at Cincy, Otis Mitchell, telling us the story of the Defenestration of Prague. I remember the story, not the details, so I went googling and went to the Wikipedia for a quick refresher. Seems that in 1618 two Imperial governors and a scribe were thrown out of a castle's window and landed in a pile of manure. They were not severely injured. However, this event is credited with starting the Thirty Years War. Students loved taking classes from Dr. Mitchell because he was quite the story teller and could have students rolling the floor at his telling of history. I suspect this was the case and why the Defenstration of Prague remained in my conscious memory all this time.
