FYI: 'Brain rot' is on the list because Oxford University declared it as the definitive word of the year for 2024 (37,000 people from all over the world voted in their poll of which 8 words were on their shortlist. I also included 'slop', which was on their list. Slop refers specifically to material produced by LLMs. Collins dictionary chose 'brat'. Cambridge dictionary chose 'manifest' (does not refer to MV3, in case you were wondering). Dictionary-com chose 'demure'. A word used a lot on TikToc that refers to the stuff users adore. The Economist chose 'kakistocracy'. A kakistocracy is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. To provide 8 words on our poll, I added 2 words not on any other shortlist this year, but should have been: 'opensorcery' meaning starting out opensource then morphing into closed. Also, 'avarice ', the techbro billionaires inspired this one!
I went with "brain rot" as there seems to be a lot of that going around worldwide and "ens***tification" wasn't on the list.
They can declare what they want, I've never heard anyone use these in the past year. Also, no vote for that reason.
Definitely "woke", even Karen screams in shame. Considering Twitter, everyone is talking about it, it had a huge impact on technology, news and social media.
Because as previously mentioned, it would not be allowed here. Most of the impactful words of the past year were political, can't go there.
The Macquarie Dictionary, the national dictionary of Australia has just declared that the word of 2024 is “ens***tification“. This excellent word was coined by writer Cory Doctorow to describe how companies gradually make their services worse as they squeeze more profits out of their customers. He was referring to companies like Google, whose search results are riddled with adverts and untrustworthy AI-written summaries, and Facebook, whose news feed is so full of memes and adverts that you can barely see anything from your friends or family. Not all of us are lost for words!
Hahaha! I came to appreciate the word [edit: ens***ification] from reading @Mrkvonic 's blog. It works in so many contexts.
The winner being Brain rot is the epitome of itself. It isn't a word, it is a phrase in 2 distinct words, not even "brain-rot" which may count, and nobody seems to notice. Q.E.D.
Word(s) of the year can be a single word or an expression. They (dictionary guys) make the rules! Brain rot will be added to dictionaries as Brainrot (as a common 'expression'). Brainrot is defined as the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of over consumption of material considered to be trivial or not challenging. Society's tendency to devalue complex ideas and how this is part of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort.
With words like "wanna" and "gotta" (and worse) commonly being used in writing, I've given up on what words (and phrases) are "right" or not. (More brain rot?)
Agree with you 100%, drives me nuts when people posting on forums can't use proper punctuation or spelling. Or you get the person that posts a paragraph with perfect punctuation and spelling but somewhere in there they use the word "coz" AAARGGHHH
Just saw this today: ‘Polarization’ is Merriam-Webster’s 2024 word of the year https://apnews.com/article/word-year-merriam-webster-2024-df39b7a3651f041ac6812155f1f67f45
Merry Xmas! Ens***tification and brainrot both seem fitting for the world's state, on many levels. Even more annoying: "coz your right"
Same word of the year in The Netherlands. This year saw a different turn of events though, as the voting period was closed early due to the enraged reactions of several organisations. “The election has been hijacked in recent days by various campaign groups calling for people to vote or not to vote for certain words,” wrote the Dutch dictionary in a statement. Source: https://www.iamexpat.nl/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/polarisation-named-netherlands-word-year-2024
