Esther Lee/FlickrWords, like cultural trends, are fluid.
New ones emerge, existing ones change in meaning, and some inevitably fall out of usage.
To celebrate the power of words within American culture, the American Dialect Society has released its "Word of the Year" every year since 1990. This year's word is "they," in the context of a singular genderless pronoun, to highlight the strides the US has made in respecting people who don't identify as a man or woman.
Over the last 10 years, the ADS has somehow managed to encapsulate a key theme of each year just as concisely.
Here's how the decade played out, one word at a time.