*drum roll please*
Merriam-Webster announced that their Word of 2006, as voted by their online members, is “truthiness,” a word coined by popular TV personality Stephen Colbert.
1. truthiness (noun)1 : “truth that comes from the gut, not books” (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” October 2005)
2 : “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (American Dialect Society, January 2006)
Okay, maybe “popular” is stretching it, as I’m sure he appeals to a relatively narrow, but vocal, demographic. 
As a grammar nerd, I very much enjoy his show for his segment called “The Word,” which takes a word or phrase, twists it through the quagmire of current politics and society, and massages a snarky thesis of its meaning and application to current events. In fact, you can find his “truthiness” segment in the archives.
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