The world of student affairs has made its mark on the English language this year. Two campus scandals helped to popularize a new verb, “to tase,” a runner-up to the New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2007 Word of the Year.
The dictionary defines the term (and its variant, spelled with a “z”) as “to stun with a Taser.” As for its context, Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student whom campus police officers shocked at a speech by Sen. John Kerry, has already used the word in a sentence: “Don’t tase me, bro.”
The verb isn’t capitalized even though the noun from which it derives is. A report on the controversial tasing at the University of California at Los Angeles — for which the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, has sued the institution — explains that “Taser” comes from Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle, with Tom Swift being the boy hero of a series of early-20th-century action novels.
Readers may imagine that the new linguistic terrain caused some consternation at the fastidious Chronicle. But even we used “tase” as a verb before Oxford’s announcement.
And for the record, the dictionary’s Word of the Year is “locavore,” which refers to a movement that encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food. —Sara Lipka
