language litmus test

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightening bug.
--Mark Twain

My favorite website, Merriam-Webster Online (because I am a big ol' dork), recently posted its top words of 2005, based on online lookups, "the ten words that have most consistently piqued your curiosity this past year." They are as follows:
1. integrity
2. refugee
3. contempt
4. filibuster
5. insipid
6. tsunami
7. pandemic
8. conclave
9. levee
10. inept

Now, I use m-w.com to confirm nuances of meaning, to check presumed etymology, and to double-check my notoriously terrible spelling, and I can only hope that others do the same, because I would venture to say that these words are not that unusual. On the other hand, this list probably pretty accurately encapsulates the last year, with numbers 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of course dealing with significant events of 2005, and numbers 1, 3, 5, and 10, I can only assume, referring to the President (number 1 being the lack thereof). What? This theory seems perfectly sound to me. Let's investigate, shall we?

The top words of 2004 were as follows:
1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration
Clearly, the same conclusions can be drawn again. Numbers 1 through 9 allude to the notable occurrences of of 2004, while 10 was obviously the proper punishment for red-staters in December of that year. Q.E.D.

I can only hope that the 2005 list, based on the above theory, will serve as a harbinger of the Dems' chances to pick up some seats in the House and the Senate in November. Perhaps the m-w.com top word list will be to congressional races what, until recently, the Redskins were to the Presidential race. The more negative the words, the greater the chance of a change in control of Congress. Here's hoping!

What is your favorite unconventional election predictor?