Doug Blough

People Magazine claims the sexiest man alive is John Krasinski. Now, it wouldn't be realistic for me to bemoan not being considered, as I seldom leave the house, thus few are even aware of just how physically appealing I am. You might be more familiar with Krasinski as Jim, who married Pam on “The Office.” Jim was very likable, but never thought of him as sexy ... more adorably oafish in my blatantly heterosexual opinion.

Along those same lines, Time Magazine named Donald Trump as its person of the year. Some of his lovesick supporters likely also consider him sexy, but I'd say more endearingly orange. But I'm sure both sides of the aisle would admit he made headlines like no one since Ross Perot, who hopefully won't see his shadow this February, foretelling six more weeks of brisk winds.

So I guess magazines — which my nephews thought hilarious that I unsuccessfully scoured local stores for preseason football magazines — still have a place in our maddeningly high tech society. And apparently hand-held dictionaries haven't been totally relegated to the extinction rack either, as I see Merriam-Webster has chosen “Polarization” as its word of the year.

Booooring! I think we've all been inundated with polarization and familiar with its meaning ever since Kenneth Starr harassed Monica Lewinski's 90-year-old granny for information and Newt Gingrich huddled up with Linda Tripp. (If you don't remember these folk, look it up in your Funk & Waggonel).

Also-rans in Merriam-Webster's words of the year were “demure,” “fortnight,” “totality,” “allision,” and one we've had around since pigs could fly, “weird.” I guess weird jumped in there since Kamala's running buddy Tim Walz called Republican leaders weird. No, what he was a proponent for putting into boy's bathrooms was weird! Weird is probably the most spelling-confused word people look up to remember if it's spelled with the E or I first. It is the E of course — w-e-i-r-d — further blowing the ridiculously deceptive “i before e except after c” rule out of the water.

Allision — a moving object crashing into a fixed object — was looked up 60 times more often after that ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore. It hints of my driving history back in my late teens/early 20s. Just for the fun of it, I'll now attempt to use each of these award-winning words in a single sentence. Wish me luck ... “Color me demure, (reserved/modest) as I've been for a fortnight, but it resonates how the totality of our nation's polarization is weird, and an allision to my sensibilities.” That was feeble, but surely you'd give me an A for effort.

Merriam Webster's worthy competitor, the Oxford Dictionary, chose “brain-rot” as its word of the year. In my unwavering desire to keep you informed, it means “The supposed decline of a person's mental state due to over-consumption of online content considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” That covers a whole ton of stuff if you ask me.

A word my nephew Rusty taught me earlier this year when he accused me of being one was ludite — “one opposed to technological change.” I found it off-putting (great word btw) he'd label me such when I had recently canceled my TV Guide subscription. Regardless, ludite is much worthier of word-of-year honors than polarization, though I found his depiction of me polarizing, not to mention inaccurate. I never have and never will shoot a health care CEO in the back.

I'd be willing to bet “Wordle” was a word-of-year at some point in the last several years of eligibility. The word game has certainly transformed my life, which gives you some idea of how meaningless my life has been.

I'd like to submit a new word I made up as a contender for next year's word-of-year honors, and that is “crimeacouchalist — one one who watches so many true-life murder documentaries, one fears leaving the house lest one be murdered by a serial killer.” I guess that makes me Time's most dysfunctional, stressed-out couch potato of the year. My cat still thinks I'm a hell of a lot sexier than John Krasinski though.