The author of the article, Grant Barrett, usually co-moderates the panel where we select the Word of the Year at American Dialect Society annual meeting. You can see some other nomination lists here: http://americandialect.org/
Meeting is next weekend in Chicago. The way this usually goes is that winners of sub-categories (like "most useful, most likely to succeed" &c) come from these nomination lists, but the WotY often comes in as a darkhorse suggestion from members during the early round of balloting. This happened with both metrosexual and truthiness, if memory serves.
A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
---Roger Ebert
Some questions cannot be answered
Who’s gonna bury who
We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
---Over the Rhine