Words of the Year 2024

 by Sybil Johnson

It’s that time of the year again. No, I don’t mean Thanksgiving, though it is tomorrow. I’m busy prepping for that. 

No, I mean the time when the words of the year start rolling in. Here’s what’s going on so far.

• Merriam-Webster, an American dictionary, has been selecting a woty since 2003 when it chose democracy. They choose based on which words were most frequently looked up on their website. No “word” yet on what the 2024 woty is.

• Collins, a British dictionary, has been selecting a woty since 2013 when it chose geek. 

Its 2024 word of the year is brat which is defined as someone who is "characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude". This, apparently, is newly defined for 2024 and inspired by the Charli XCX album by that same name.

Don’t know who Charli XCX is, but apparently among the young’uns (at least in the UK) it’s one of the most talked about words for 2024. 

Other words that were finalists: 

delulu, meaning to be "utterly mistaken or unrealistic in one's ideas or expectations" I guess this comes from delusional. 

looksmaxxing, a word commonly used in online male communities that refers to "attempting to maximize the attractiveness of one's physical appearance" 

rawdogging, the growing travel trend where passengers abstain from in-flight entertainment and other travel perks. That means no movies, no music, no snacks, no napping!, no using a phone. So you just stare at the seat in front of you. Yeah, not going to do that. 

yapping, which means talking at length about things that don't really matter that much. I think people have been doing this for a long, long time.

 supermajority, a political term that became popular around the UK general election in July.

• Cambridge, another British dictionary, has been choosing its words of the year since 2015 when they picked austerity. 

The 2024 word of the year is manifest. According to the British dictionary, it refers to the practice of using “methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen,” 

I feel like people have been talking about manifesting things for a very long time, particularly celebrities, including Dua Lipa and Simone Biles this past year. 

Maybe we should all try to manifest a more peaceful, positive world.

• Macquarie, an Australian dictionary, has been choosing a woty since 2006 when it picked muffin top. The 2024 word is enshittification. This was also the American Dialect Society’s word of the year for 2023. Macquarie defines it as “The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking."

•  Oxford, another British dictionary, has been choosing a woty since 2004 when it picked chav, which I have never heard of. According to the dictionary it means “a young person of a type characterized by coarse and brash behavior (with connotations of low social status).” 

Apparently, they haven’t announced the 2024 woty yet, but brain rot is one of the finalists. It’s a supposed decline in a person's mental or intellectual state, often attributed to consuming too much trivial or unchallenging content, especially online.

Among the other finalists are: 

dynamic pricing: Varying the price of a product or service to reflect market conditions. Anyone who goes to Disneyland and other theme parks these days knows this one.

romantasy: A genre of fiction that combines elements of romance and fantasy, often with themes of magic, adventure, or the supernatural. I have heard this used a lot this past year.

slop: Art, writing, or other content created using artificial intelligence, and shared online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way 

Voting closes on November 28th.

• The American Dialect Society has been choosing a woty since 1990 when it chose bushlips, referring to insincere political rhetoric. It comes from President Bush’s speech about reading his lips and no new taxes. The society doesn’t choose its word until January. They are open for nominations.

• dictionary.com has been choosing since 2010 when it picked change. It’s 2024 woty is demure. They analyzed things like news headlines and social media to see what words were trending. Demure, apparently, had a 1200% increase in usage over the last year! Can’t say I’ve used it. According to the article linked above, demure now means “ refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior in various contexts, such as at work or on a plane.”

That’s what’s going on so far. Your challenge is to try using some of these words in a sentence! 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Words of the Year 2022

 

by Sybil Johnson

The words of the year for 2022 are starting to roll in from various organizations. Unlike previous years, I haven’t come up with candidates myself. Maybe ‘divisiveness’ or ‘pandemic fatigue’. That’s all I can think of. Here’s what I've seen so far:

Merriam-Webster chose gaslighting as their word for 2022. Every time I hear this I think of the 1944 movie “Gaslight”. (Excellent film.) I believe the term came from the 1938 play the film is based on. Anyway, gaslighting is ‘the act or of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.’ Merriam-Webster says there was a 1740% increase in look ups of the word in the past year. To see the full article go here. 

Collins, a British dictionary, chose permacrisis as their word of the year. It is “an extended period of instability and insecurity.” I would say that describes 2022 very well. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

The Cambridge dictionary chose homer. “Short for home run: a point scored in baseball when you hit the ball, usually out of the playing field, and are able to run around all the bases at one time to the starting base.” This seems very strange to me. I gather the term homer is not common in the UK. Don’t think it would make word of the year here.

The Macquarie Dictionary (Australian English) chose teal. “A political candidate who holds generally ideologically moderate views, but who supports strong action regarding environmental and climate action policies, and the prioritising of integrity in politics”. As far as I’m concerned, teal is a very pretty color or a duck. Found this definition interesting. Apparently, many political candidates in Australia in 2022 wore the color teal.

And, finally, there’s the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year: goblin mode. For the first time, the public voted on the word of the year. The contenders were goblin mode, metaverse and #IStandWith. Goblin mode is defined as “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.” I am not aware of this term. Guess it shows you how old and out of it I am. Unless this is a British thing? What do you all think? Have you heard of “goblin mode”? For more on this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/goblin-mode-selected-as-oxfords-2022-word-of-the-year-180981245/

The American Dialect Society will select its word of the year at its annual meeting in January 2023. They are accepting nominations through December 28th. https://www.americandialect.org/now-accepting-nominations-for-2022-word-of-the-year 

In other news, a reminder that the price for the California Crime Writers Conference goes up January 1st. It’s being held June 10 and 11, 2023 in Culver City, in person! You don’t have to live in California to attend. For more information and to register go to https://ccwconference.org/

Words of the Year 2021

 

Yesterday morning I read an article in the newspaper about Merriam-Webster selecting its Word of the Year for 2021. Not terribly surprisingly it has something to do with Covid-19, it’s “vaccine”. In 2020, their word of the year was “pandemic”. I hope the 2022 word of the year has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic, but we’ll just have to see.

They choose their word of the year by looking at what words are looked up most on Merriam-Webster.com. The word must be a “top lookup” in the last 12 months and must show a significant increase in lookups over the previous year. According to the article below, lookups increased 601% from 2021 and 1,048% from 2019!

And, apparently, the dictionary changed its definition of the word slightly. You can read all about it here.

The OED word of the year for 2021 is “vax”. The OED defines it as a colloquialism that means either vaccinate or vaccine. Apparently, its use has been relatively uncommon until this year.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/world/word-of-the-year-2021-scli-intl-gbr/index.html 

The American Dialect Society hasn’t yet chosen its word of the year. They’ll be doing that January 6-9, 2022 at their annual meeting. 

The Cambridge Dictionary chose “perseverance” as their word of the year. Their word of the year for 2020 was “quarantine”. Perseverance seems to be a bit more positive, which is nice to see.

https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2021/11/17/cambridge-dictionarys-word-of-the-year-2021/

The Macquarie dictionary in Australia chose “strollout” as their word of the year. Meaning: “referring to the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination program in Australia, with reference to the perceived lack of speed” 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/30/strollout-chosen-as-macquarie-dictionarys-2021-word-of-the-year

I’m not sure what I would nominate as a word of the year for 2021, but I rather like “perseverance”. What are your suggestions for the 2021 WOTY?