Time magazine has named its man of the year (ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani), the United States has its villain of the new century (Osama bin Laden) and now the American Dialect Society is getting ready to vote on its word or phrase of the year.

And while cuddle puddle (a pile of ecstasy users on the floor) is in the running, the smart money is backing phrases like "Ground Zero," "Let's Roll," "9/11," "September 11," "Evil Doers," "Terrible Tuesday" and "Post-September 11" as likely winners when voting takes place on January 4 in a San Francisco hotel at the language group's annual meeting.

While previous years have celebrated such phrases as "millennium bug," "Y2K," "e-commerce" and "chads", the language mavens studying 2001 are as consumed with the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The Dialect Society's Website has nominated more than 20 words and phrases, including some that appeared in print maybe once or twice like "Osamaniac" (a woman sexually attracted to Osama bin Laden).

Besides "Ground Zero," the top 10 words on the list include President George Bush's middle initial "W" in second place with the advisory "The butt of January's political jokes waxes most presidential in September."

In third place is "Jihad," the Arabic word for "struggle" but which is used today as "Holy War."

"God" is in fourth place with its variations of "Allah" and "Yahweh" with the note that in one form or another the "name has been in more headlines and on the lips of more politicians than any time in recent memory."

"Anthrax" is fifth on the list, followed by "Euro," Europe's new currency, and "Wizard" thanks to the Harry Potter craze.

In eighth place, the long-ignored suffix "stan" makes a comeback as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and thanks to a recent New Yorker cover, a mythical place called "New Yorkistan" which boasts such areas as "Irant and Irate," "Taxistan" and "Fuhgeddabuditstan."

In 9th place is a tribute to talk show host Oprah Winfrey "Oprahization," a term denoting whether something would play on her show or not. And in 10th place is "foot-and-mouth" referring to the disease.

This Website also ranks the colors of the year and not surprisingly in the groundswell of patriotic fervor that followed September 11 the three top colors of 2001 are red, white and blue.

(Agencies)