Most ‘words of the year’ don’t actually tell us about the state of the world – here’s what I’d pick instead
It seems to come earlier every year: publishers and dictionaries choosing their “word of the year”. Initially intended to sum up a meaningful trend or feeling that represents the past year, the exercise is now becoming a competition to identify and highlight fashionable slang.
Collins went with brat, the Charli XCX album phenomenon as applied to reckless, feisty females (and briefly to Kamala Harris). Cambridge’s word was manifest, influencer-speak for “wish hard and make it happen”.
Oxford, after a poll, nominated brain rot, the mind-numbing result of scrolling and online obsessing, with slop (low-quality content produced by AI) as runner-up. Dictionary.com chose demure, used ironically to promote a more dignified pose or attitude on the part of online showoffs.
What strikes me – a lexicologist (word analyst) – is that these picks show not only how aspects of society are changing, but how the nature of words themselves evolves in unexpected ways.
The faddish terms that have made this year’s list are, like most slang (including last year’s pick “rizz”), largely generated by members of younger demographics, in particular gen Z.
Older onlookers may try (and fail) to grasp the significance of these quirky expressions. We need to realise that they are invented and used in ways that are often different to how traditional vocabulary functions. They are not necessarily defining facts, actions or processes or at all. Rather, they are finding names for what a younger cohort calls vibes, aesthetics or microtrends – capturing a feeling, rather than describing a concept.
These words are often themselves memes, concepts disseminated virally that incorporate images and sounds too (what researchers call “multimodality”). Demure, for example, stemmed from a TikTok video with a specific voice attached. Without that meme element, it’s unlikely to have reached the status of word of the year.
We can’t even be sure that the new expressions are meant to be taken seriously, or that they actually mean anything at all. Part of the brain rot phenomenon arises when people create and exchange phrases and words that are frivolous, transient, ironic or just nonsensical. (See: “skibidi”).
Read more: Manifesting has a dark side – there are problems with believing our thoughts have so much power
Some of this can be explained by another phenomenon (and one of my own candidates for word of the year): trendbait. This describes new words, messages or performances deliberately generated by online influencers to draw attention to themselves and gain followers and fame.
In any case, Dazed magazine, whose millennial and gen Z staff largely inhabit the world from which those terms emanate, are unhappy with the publishers’ final choices. They’ve pointed out that one of the most ubiquitous and important novelties of the year is not a word but a suffix: -maxxing. This means to maximise, enhance or exaggerate one’s persona, and is added to form such expressions as looksmaxxing, sleepmaxxing and smellmaxxing.
What’s in a word of the year?
As I wrote at this time last year, there is still an enormous elephant in the room. It’s easy to understand why dictionary and news publishers choose amusing, intriguing verbal curiosities and exotic novelties to highlight at year-end.
But this means they are sidestepping the darker, more pressing concerns affecting millions worldwide. Just a few publishers selected words that reflect the state of play in the wider world. Their choices stressed a dystopian perspective. Drawing on survey data and search traffic, US dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster chose the rather underwhelming though admittedly relevant polarization.
In Australia, Macquarie Dictionaries selected the very rude enshittification. This term was coined to evoke the way in which society is increasingly not working, and processes and services are more and more unable to deliver. The Economist choice was kakistocracy, a 17th-century mock-pompous coinage describing rule by the worst elements of society. Like enshittification, this underlines disenchantment with established structures and ruling elites.
I would have put forward another candidate in this category: “broligarchy”, in use on social media for years but only now appearing in mainstream media. This reflects the idea that members of a tech and finance elite, the billionaires and the platform-owners, capricious and irresponsible though they may be, are now usurping the power formerly wielded by governments and lawmakers.
In my ongoing, exhausting attempts to track language innovations and change, I’ve recorded a number of other terms which seem to me to be particularly representative of our priorities in 2024. The name of the UN climate summit, Cop29, was in itself a sort of buzzword. Related keywords were mitigation, NDCs (nationally determined contributions), and for several years running, net zero.
Ambient information is a new phrase describing the facts, rumours and conspiracies circulating online, from which many people now derive their worldview rather than from official or traditional news sources. Dynamic pricing, a commercial euphemism for adjusting prices of popular products (this year’s Oasis concert tickets, for example) to the very maximum that hapless consumers can afford.
Words of the year do not have to be new coinages, but may be existing words that seem to have become particularly apposite or resonant. My choice last year was target – noun and verb – reflecting my horror about the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and how it was covered in some media. The geopolitical catastrophes have only multiplied since then.
Forgive my cynicism, then, if my word of 2024 – spiking in online usage but also frequently heard in street protests and private expressions of indignation – is “complicit”.
Tony Thorne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.