Merriam-Webster is proving an unlikely star of the Presidential debates, tweeting a string of words Americans are looking up and shedding new light on what is really happening in US homes. Shortly afterwards "locker room" began to spike, in reference to the dismissal of the comments as "locker room talk". When talk moved to Syria and the city of Aleppo which is suffering a humanitarian crisis after a ceasefire between US and Russian backed forces collapsed, Americans began to look up the name of the city but mistakenly called it "a lepo" rather than "Aleppo". Note that more people are looking up 'lepo-' (as in, "what's a lepo?") #debate https://t.co/SvAqKWp3bz — Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) October 10, 2016Following the debate the top 10 trends were all related to politics and also included "demagogic", "death knell", "polarises", "feckless".

Source: New Zealand Herald October 10, 2016 09:11 UTC