SPANISH WORD OF THE YEAR: CORRUPCIÓN VS ARANCEL
In a previous post, I chose corrupción as the word of the year in Peninsular Spanish. As I anticipated, FUNDEU RAE (Fundación del Español Urgente, Real Academia Española) has opted instead for arancel, apparently on the grounds of frequency, in keeping with a posture of political neutrality that has little to do with the study of language as social practice or lived experience.
I have conducted a modest, admittedly unscientific poll among acquaintances, students, friends, and family. All of them know perfectly well what corrupción means, whereas several hesitated or faltered when asked about arancel. I am well aware that anecdotal evidence does not compete methodologically with corpus data, and I stand ready to be corrected on scientific grounds; still, I stick to my guns and proclaim corrupción the word of the year for 2025. One can only hope that it will lose currency in 2026—and perhaps even disappear from our vocabulary altogether.
I have conducted a modest, admittedly unscientific poll among acquaintances, students, friends, and family. All of them know perfectly well what corrupción means, whereas several hesitated or faltered when asked about arancel. I am well aware that anecdotal evidence does not compete methodologically with corpus data, and I stand ready to be corrected on scientific grounds; still, I stick to my guns and proclaim corrupción the word of the year for 2025. One can only hope that it will lose currency in 2026—and perhaps even disappear from our vocabulary altogether.
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