The next essay is reprinted with permission from The Dialog, an internet publication overlaying the newest analysis.
Ever because the American Dialect Society chosen a Phrase of the 12 months at its convention in 1990, over half a dozen English dictionaries have anointed an annual phrase or phrase that’s meant to encapsulate the zeitgeist of the prior yr.
In 2003, the writer of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary started bestowing a crown. On Dec. 9, 2024, it chosen “polarization” as its phrase of the yr, which joins an inventory of 2024 winners from different dictionaries that features “brat,” “manifest,” “demure,” “brain rot” and “enshittification.”
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The phrases which might be honored are chosen in quite a lot of methods. For instance, this yr the editors of the Oxford dictionaries allowed the general public to solid votes for his or her favourite from a brief record of candidates. Mind rot emerged victorious.
Different publishers depend on the acumen of their editors, augmented by measures of recognition such because the variety of on-line searches for a specific time period.
Given the steep decline within the sale of printed reference works, these yearly bulletins increase the visibility of the writer’s wares. However their selections additionally provide a window into the spirit of the occasions.
As a cognitive scientist who research language and communication, I noticed, on this yr’s batch of winners, the myriad methods digital life is influencing English language and tradition.
Hits and misses
This isn’t the one yr wherein almost all of the winners fell beneath a single thematic umbrella. In 2020, epidemic-related terminology – Covid, lockdown, pandemic and quarantine– surged to the fore.
Normally, nonetheless, there’s extra of a combination, with some choices extra prescient and helpful than others. In 2005, for instance, the New Oxford American Dictionary selected “podcast” – proper earlier than the programming format exploded in reputation.
Extra generally, the celebrated neologisms don’t age effectively.
In 2008, the New Oxford American Dictionary chosen hypermiling, or driving to maximise gas effectivity. Permacrisis– an ongoing emergency – bought the nod from the Collins Dictionary editors in 2022.
Neither time period will get a lot use in 2024.
Manifesting mind rot
I can already anticipate considered one of this yr’s choices – “brat” – throwing in the towel.
Simply earlier than the 2024 U.S. election, Collins Dictionary selected brat as its phrase of the yr. The writer outlined it as “characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude.”
Not coincidentally, it was additionally the identify of a chart-topping album launched by Charli XCX in June 2024. In late July, the singer tweeted, “kamala IS brat,” signaling her help for the Democratic presidential candidate.
After all, with Harris’ loss, brat has misplaced a few of its luster.
Different 2024 phrases of the yr even have social media to thank for his or her reputation.
In late November, Cambridge Dictionary settled on manifest as its phrase of the yr, defining it as “to use methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want.”
The time period took off when singer Dua Lipa used it in an interview. However she appears to have picked up on the idea from self-help communities on TikTok.
One other phrase that clearly benefited from social media was “demure,” chosen in late November by Dictionary.com. Though the phrase dates to the fifteenth century, it went viral in a TikTok video posted by Jools Lebron in early August. In it, she described acceptable office habits as “very demure, very mindful.”
The Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English settled on “enshittification” as its phrase in early December. Coined by Canadian-British author Cory Doctorow in 2022, it refers back to the gradual decline in performance or usability of a particular platform or service — one thing that Google, TikTok, X and relationship app customers can attest to.
The Oxford dictionary choose for 2024 — “brain rot” — encapsulates the mind-numbing results of extreme social media use.
The dictionary maker outlined its phrase of the yr as a “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”
Mind rot, nonetheless, isn’t a brand new idea. Within the concluding part of “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau complained that “brain rot” prevailed “widely and fatally.”
Digital knives out
Merriam-Webster landed on “polarization” for its Phrase of the 12 months. The dictionary maker outlined the time period as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.”
Within the U.S., political polarization has quite a lot of causes, starting from gerrymandering to in-group biases.
However social media undoubtedly performs a giant position. A 2021 overview by the Brookings Establishment pointed to “the relationship between tech platforms and the kind of extreme polarization that can lead to the erosion of democratic values and partisan violence.” And journalist Max Fisher has reported on the methods wherein the algorithms deployed by these social media platforms “steer users toward outrage” – an remark that experimental research of the phenomenon have supported.
Regardless of the polarization of political and social life, the dictionaries, on the very least, have arrived at a consensus: The tech giants are shaping our lives and our language, for higher or for worse.
This text was initially revealed on The Dialog. Learn the authentic article.
