Go Tell Your Meddling City Council: 'Vape' Is Word of the Year

Oxford Dictionary has declared "vape"—the verb used to describe smoking electronic cigarettes—as its word of the year. It added the word to its dictionary in August and charted a spike in the use of the term over the spring as it became a hot-button issue in cities:

Usage of vape peaked in April 2014—as the graph below indicates—around the time that the UK's first 'vape café' (The Vape Lab in Shoreditch, London) opened its doors, and protests were held in response to New York City banning indoor vaping. In the same month, the issue of vaping was debated by The Washington Post, the BBC, and the British newspaper The Telegraph, amongst others.

Oxford

The word beat out "normcore" and "slacktivism," so we should all be grateful at the dodged bullets there. Reason should get part of the credit, yes? Reason writers have been beating the drum throughout 2014 (and earlier) about how local governments are overreacting to the rise of e-cigarettes, attempting to treat them exactly the same as traditional cigarettes even though the harms (especially to bystanders) are not the same and that it could serve as a useful tool to help people quit smoking traditional tobacco. Reason hosted one of those aforementioned protest events in New York City. Here's some recent Reason pieces:

"Smoking by Teenagers Continues to Fall As Vaping Continues to Rise"

"If It Tastes Good to Kids, Ban It"

"Study: E-Cigarettes Offer Far More Benefits Than Harms to Smokers and Bystanders"

"Jay Rockefeller's Vaping Vapors"

And many more pieces here.

And below from Reason TV, New Yorkers fight the city's ban on e-cigarettes in public places and bars: