"Polarization" is the 'word of the year' story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading in my morning newspaper that the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election rattled the country and sent shock waves across the world - or were cause for celebration, depending on who you ask.  Is it any surprise then that the Merrian-Webster word of the year is "polarization"?  "Polarization means division, but its a very specific kind of division," said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press ahead of Monday's announcement.  "Polarization means that we are tending toward the extremes rather than toward the center."  The election was so divisive, many American voters went to the polls with a feeling that the opposing candidate was an existential threat to the nation.  According to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters, about 8 in 10 Kamala Harris voters were very or somewhat concerned that Donald Trump's views - but not Harris' - were too extreme, while about 7 in 10 Trump voters felt the same way about Harris - but not Trump.  The Merriam-Webster entry for "polarization" reflects scientific and metaphorical definitions.  It's most commonly used to mean "causing strong disagreement between opposing factions or groupings."  Merriam-Webster, which logs 100 million page views a month on its site, chooses its word of the year based on data, tracking a rise in search and usage.  Last year's pick was "authentic."  This year's comes as large swaths of the U.S. struggle to reach consensus on what is real.  "It's always been important to me that the dictionary serve as a kind of neutral and objective arbiter of meaning for everybody," Sokolowski said.  "It's a kind of backstop for meaning in an era of fake news, alternative facts, whatever you want to say about the value of a word's meaning in the culture."  "Polarization" extends beyond political connotations.  It's used to highlight fresh cracks and deep rifts alike in pop culture, tech trends and other industries.  All the scrutiny over Taylor Swift's private jet usage?  Polarizing.  Beef between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake?  Polarizing.  The International Olympic Committee's decision to strip American gymnast Jordan Chiles of her bronze medal after the Paris Games?  You guessed it: polarizing.  Other top words were "demure," "fortnight," "totality," "resonate," "allusion," "weird," "cognitive," "pander" and - consistently one of the most looked up since it was the first word of the year in 2003 - "democracy."