After the year-end Word of the Year lists, what’s one diachronic n-gram burst detection signal you rely on to judge a candidate’s staying power? Can you share one example where that signal changed your pick?

After year end Word of the Year lists, the signal I trust most is sustained mid-frequency n-gram growth across unrelated domains. I look for a term that moves from media spikes into product docs, job posts, and academic abstracts within 60-90 days. One year I dropped a flashy social term because usage collapsed outside news. Another quieter candidate kept rising in technical writing. That persistence changed my pick. Staying power shows up when language spreads into work, not headlines.