6. Staycation
Louise Ma
This term, which refers to a vacation taken at home or within a short drive, became popular during the '08 summer travel season when rising fuel prices made plane tickets or long road trips prohibitively expensive for many people. (Oil prices hit a record high of $147 a barrel in July, and gas prices approached $5 a gallon in some places.) Another buzzword tied to high gas prices: "hypermiling", the attempt to maximize gas mileage by doing such things as avoiding hills and never letting your car idle.
TIME parses the top buzzwords of 2008:
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