“An example of that is what occurred upon the death of Michael Jackson in June of 2009, which Sokolowski describes as “one of the most intense vocabulary events” in his history. People began to search for six words in sequence: stricken, resuscitate, condolences, icon, RIP, and emaciated. “Those words tell a story all by themselves,” he says. Emaciated ended up being the most looked-up word for that month and the entire summer, and the second most looked-up word of the year, beaten only by admonish, which spiked after Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst against President Obama during the president’s health care speech to Congress in November of that year.”
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