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THE word 'macaca', used by outgoing US Republican senator George Allen to describe a Democratic activist of Indian descent who was trailing his campaign, was named the most politically incorrect word of the year on Friday by Global Language Monitor, a nonprofit group that studies word usage.
"The word might have changed the political balance of the US senate, since Allen's utterance surely impacted his election bid, " said the group's head, Paul JJ Payack.
In second place on this year's list was 'Global Warming Denier', for someone who believes climate change has moved from scientific theory to dogma. In third was 'Herstory' substituting for 'History'. Payack said there are nearly 900,000 Google citations for 'Herstory', all based on a mistaken assumption that 'history' is a sexist word.
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