A vortex of photobombing cannibals

From 'cannibalization” to ' hog castration,” the year in words just past was enough to make many of us 'squeal.”

It's really no wonder that Oxford Dictionaries named 'vape” it's 2014 word of the year. To vape is to draw in the calming, nicotine-laden vapors of an e-cigarette. Also in Oxford's top seven is 'budtender,' the dude who assists you in your desire to order up a Rocky Mountain High.

A year that gave us the 'polar vortex” begged for alternative ways to chill out. And yet, with all that budtending, Burger King's 'satisfries” flopped. Lower calorie fries didn't catch on. Go figure.

Britain's Chambers Dictionary picked 'overshare” as the year's top word, news I read about in my pajamas, unshowered, unshaven and sort of depressed about … never mind. Also across the pond, Collins Dictionary chose 'photobomb,” a word describing that uninvited guy, gal or animal that makes it into your snapshot or 'selfie,” 2013's Oxford word of the year.

Maybe you took it with a 'selfie stick.” And if you were lucky, it was a 'lumbersexual” who photobombed your selfie with his rugged, bearded antidote to the preening metrosexual wave a few years back. An maybe that lumbersexual was sporting 'normcore” attire, which Oxford describes as a 2014 trend in which 'ordinary, unfashionable clothing is worn as a deliberate fashion statement.”

Also known as 'my closet.”

Of all the professional word-of-the-year-ing, my favorite was linguist Geoff Nunberg's choice of 'God view,” which Uber car service uses to describe a map showing all its cars in a given area and the people who ordered them. Very useful. Exceedingly creepy. That's basically our relationship with technology in 2014.

Closer to home, no word had more power and elicited stronger feelings that 'cannibalization.”

It's the jarring term used by the gambling industry to describe how a casino siphons customers and bucks away from one or more other casinos. That's what market studies said a proposed Cedar Rapids casino would do to casinos in Riverside, Waterloo and beyond if the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission granted it a license. And, in the end, it was the commission's fear of that cannibalization that loomed large in its 4-1 vote to deny that license.

More than a few folks demanded that I quit using the term. Nobody called for boiling me in a pot while cannibals danced ‘round, but close.

Call it competition, call it the open market, heck, call it freedomization if you want. I don't think the label was the real problem.

And it wasn't even the most curious term yielded by the casino saga.

That goes to 'healthy family gambling,” a term coined by state Sen. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids. Horn called for his Senate colleagues to embrace healthy family gambling by granting Cedar Rapids a license to operate the state's first smoke-free casino. They declined.

No word on whether Disney has been approached about the possibility of a 'Frozen: Let it Ride!” casino. Maybe a water park. OK, too soon.

But we persevered through casino disappointment. 'Dine. Dwell. Do” the downtown banners urged. And we did.

The City Council declined to outlaw 'aggressive panhandling.” But after being aggressively smacked throughout the campaign season with endless dishonest ads, fact-free mailers, phoning pollsters and substance-free mudslinging of all shades, the panhandlers seem tame.

Of course, it was hog castration that changed the course of our U.S. Senate race, and Iowa history. U.S. Sen.-elect Joni Ernst's famous 'Squeal” ad heralded her farm experience cutting pork, which she would take to Washington and 'make ‘em squeal!” She rode the ad's viral momentum to a big republican primary victory and all the way to becoming Iowa's first-ever female member of the U.S. Congress.

I actually think 'squeal” is the perfect word for 2014. It's emblematic of what our politics is now really all about. It's not about new ideas, innovative solutions or a determination to tackle problems facing a big, diverse nation. It's about making ‘em squeal, making 'them” pay, exacting retribution to make 'us” feel vindicated for our state of perpetual outrage.

Campaigns now are like a long, cringe-inducing closing argument by an overzealous prosecutor, urging us to use our votes to pound and punish, paid for with piles of shady, unlimited outside bucks. In 2015-2016, squeal politics will be on steroids.

So who will be doing the squealing in 2015? Perhaps that 'dependent generation” Ernst derides. But it's probably anyone hoping that 'governing” makes a comeback. It may be as hard to find as satisfries.

' Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com