132: WotY 2025, the Final Word (with Kelly Wright)

0:00If the people of Minnesota are nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and they get it, I am like, that is great. That is great. That would be pretty cool. They have been so brilliant. As a Swedish person, I think everyone should stop caring about Nobel Prizes. All of them. Hedwig's opinion on this matter is not to be taken lightly.

0:30Hello and welcome to Because Language, a show about linguistics, the science of language. My name is Daniel Medjly. Let's meet the team. We have our good friend Hedwig Hirgaard. How's it going, Hedwig? We're friends. I'm not a co-host. Okay, let me just tell you something. I'm, I'm, I had one generation of children, which, which did the thing that it always does where you lose all your friends.

1:07And then I had a second generation of children, which not only took out that next generation of friends, but also destroyed my ability to have, Hedwig doesn't understand what I'm talking about, but other parents will. And so now you're the closest thing to a friend that I've got, you and Ben. So, you know, congratulations. I am your friend. I am your friend. I just didn't know when you said like, it sounded like you meant like friend of the show. Hedwig is on for a special episode. And I was like, hmm. Oh, that's, oh, that's not good.

1:39No. Anyway, that's fine. That's fine. I don't know. I'm a friend of the show. I am a friend of the show. I am very much a friend of the show. Okay, good. And friend of the show. Just kidding. It's Kelly Wright. Hello. Honored co-host. She hates us. Somebody that we're always happy to hang with. Hi, Kelly. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Happy to be back. Happy to be back. I'm like, call me friend. Isn't that like, that's like the best. I feel like that's the best thing you can call me. Friend is good, isn't it? Friend is good. Friend is good. You're also as close as I get.

2:11I think of you as a friend. You know, the Quakers got it right. Friends are cool. Friends are cool. Friends are cool. And I'm going to start using thee and thou to both of you. Oh, okay. Okay. I should mention that our other friend, Ben Ainsley, is not with us for this episode. He has a selfless act of service that he's performing in the service of a friend. Somebody that is actually a friend to him. Which, you know, he's got others. On this episode, we're getting up to speed for a whole new season of Because Language,

2:42but we're also taking another look backward at the words of the year 2025. This time from the perspective of the American Dialect Society's word of the year vote. And Kelly, you have a special role to play in this one. I know. It was a fun year. I think the years that are the most fun are the ones where we have no idea what's going to happen. There's not a clear front runner. Like in the COVID years where it was like, well, it's probably going to be a COVID term.

3:12You know, this time it was like, field's open. Did it feel that way? It felt kind of wide open. Like there was no clear. A little, like there was a lot of spread, a lot of different types of words, meaning that my job, which is usually sometimes very easy, is like organizing nominees into just like apparent categories. So when it's all COVID related terms, you're like, here's a category of COVID related terms. Like that makes the job easier.

3:43When it's a lot of big spread, then I have to be like, I get to, it's a little puzzle. I get to be like, you know, what's, who's related? And I get to play related or not. I get to do a lot of things by myself in the spreadsheet. You do. But the other thing is that has to happen really, really fast because the turnaround time between the noms and the actual vote is one evening. It's one day. You, yeah, it is. It's not, it's not, it's like four days. It's four days. But in, but in that, something like that, cause it closes New Year's Eve and we usually meet like the fourth or the fifth or the sixth or the seventh or something like that.

4:20But I have to get my whole body to a place in those four days. You know, I usually have to go to some exciting locale like New Orleans this year. Right. And so, um, it is about a day. It gets about a day. It gets a solid human work days attention. And from me, uh, right before the vote, it's, you know, later in the year, I get to play with it more. How many nominees are coming in? So it was a big year in, um, both directions, almost, almost as many submissions.

4:55Like it was kind of tied for first place, uh, 111, which the most we'd ever had was like 113, but we have way more Lexemes nominated this year than ever. The previous highest total was like 330 something. And this year it was 965.

5:15Wow. Okay. So people are filling out the form, which I appreciate. Nice going, everybody. Okay. Now we'll have more to ask you about this. And I guess we have to mention that for the actual voting, tons of linguists, lexicographers, word lovers pile into a room and argue and joust and jostle and fight and have a great time. And, uh, at least that's how I remember it. Uh, and then the winners get selected.

5:47Yeah. It was really nice. This year, the room was actually very big. It was like aircraft hangar big. Um, it was huge. It was, it was wild. It was like a maze of, you know, those weird partitions that were like subdivided inside this big giant cavernous space. But it was actually quite nice because there was a plenty of standing room. People definitely milled in and we had some weird technical difficulties. So we had to do the hand raising, uh, counting.

6:20Oh, that's fun. It was fun because I'd never done it before. And I got to like run around through the audience. I had a great time. Yeah. Wow.

6:28Well, thank you for your service. Yeah. That's great.

6:33Now, just a note to all of our patrons. The merch drop for this year has been mailed. They are all winging their way to you, including one sticker inspired by Dr. Kelly Wright. It says, in it for the words, because, uh, you said it, I liked it, I made the sticker. I love the colors. And you are in it for the words. Very much so. That's why I do it. Cool. Thanks to all our patrons, free and paid. If you'd like to become a patron and support the show, there's an easy way to do it. Just head over to patreon.com slash becauselangpod and you can decide your level.

7:06There's lots of fun goodies that you can get. Thanks to all of our patrons. All right. Now, as far as the American Dialect Society Word of the Year vote for 2025, you can see all the nominees and winners on the American Dialect Society website. We're going to have a link up in the show notes. That's on becauselanguage.com. So, Kelly, what was your feeling heading into this? Did you feel solid? Did you feel prepared? Were you ready for a stoush, for controversy, or was it chill? You know, we always, I guess, have our backs up for political controversy because it has

7:45happened in some years and there were a lot of political terms this year, but that didn't really happen. We spent a lot of time on 6-7. How so? You mean because it was in two categories? It was the informal Word of the Year nominee, but it was also a nominee for actual Word of the Year. Is that right? Yeah. So, it came up. We spent a good chunk of time on 6-7 in the nominating session and the live session. There were a couple different camps. We actually had two very young people, like middle schoolers, who were there, two sisters

8:21who came up and were about the same age and expressed completely different opinions, which the audience loved. Because the first one came out and she was like, I don't like it. It was like a kid. And all these people had been coming up to the microphone being like, kids use this word and it's important and we can't, just because we don't like it, we can't shy away from it or something, right? Yeah. And then a little kid came up and she was like, I hate it.

8:50Oh, come on, kids. We're celebrating your language. Take the W, please. My sister was like right behind her and she was like, yeah, I'm her sister and I love this word and blah, blah, blah, and like all this stuff. And it like just, it like destroyed the room, you know? So, it is like a really convivial experience. It's nice to see somebody younger than 13 who's not related to Ben Zimmer giving their input. Yeah. His son was like, he was like, Blake Zimmer, student at Cornell.

9:21He's a student at Cornell now? What? Yeah. I remember when he was. His first year, academic year. I know. Oh my gosh. So, yeah. So, he's like questioning it. I don't know who this is. Okay, let's talk about who it is. Blake Zimmer is the Wodee kid because he's been coming with Ben. Should we start with Ben Zimmer? Maybe not everyone. He's been on the show three times. Ben Zimmer is the chair of the ADS New Words Committee. He actually runs the word of the year vote. I just count the data. I'm so glad I'm not in charge.

9:51Ben's in charge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah. So, Ben does everything for us to get word of the year together. And, yeah. And he has a Nippa Wodee kid. And he has a kid who has been coming with him to word of the year for all of these years. And so, he, you know, once he got a little older, he started coming up to the microphone and expressing his opinion. So, each year, we're all very invested in what the Wodee kid has to say.

10:22And I do believe it was Jesse Greaser who dubbed him the Wodee kid. So, there's the whole lore. Okay. It's time to dig into categories. Do you want to start at the top with word of the year? I think maybe that's a good place to start. And then we can dig into some of the subcutaneous levels. Sure. Are you looking at the press release? I am looking at my version of the, my copied and pasted version of the press release. Yes. Perfect. Okay. Yeah. We can dig into categories. Okay.

10:52So, these were nominated on the spot and then voted on the spot. And here we go. Some of these are from other categories, so we might see them again. There was 6-7. Tell me about your feelings about 6-7. I like it because it's supposed to be a container for nothing. And that's cool. It's a wrapper. It's a wrapper. And that's cool. I also like it because it's like nonsense internet humor. And there's a lot of nonsense internet humor.

11:24It's been around for a long time. And before internet, there was nonsense humor elsewhere. I also like it because I like people having fun with numbers. You know, like SKCD said, like, you know, like there's like 69 and 420 and 42. And like, there are all these like fun numbers. And it's just fun when numbers are, I play instead of letters. It's just. Exactly. Yeah. Variation. Yeah. Variation indeed. I mentioned this on half the answer with Caitlin Green.

11:54But remember how we were talking about it? And I said, this was the first time that Generation Alpha has become mimetic beings with their own sort of. And, Hedvig, you said, wait a minute. Don't we remember all the brain rot stuff? Like Skibbity Toilet and Riz? Yeah, Skibbity. That's Alpha. And I thought about that. And I thought, yeah, you know, I did kind of forget about that. But then I realized, if you're an Alpha, you could be 15 years old. But I've got a couple of little Alphas, 9 years old and 7. And a 9-year-old kid is a very different thing from a 15-year-old kid.

12:26And the Skibbity-Ohio-Riz thing missed my girls, but they are just glomming onto 6-7. So I think we're seeing micro-generations here. I think the concept of generation is really quite fluid. And it's just a different level. I also just think that, like, there's a bigger difference between 12 and 13 than between 37 and 38. Sure. Like, it's just exponential like that all through life. And that happens to every generation.

12:58Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. Reheat Nachos. Looking at your list, there were so many that were so different from the ones that we grabbed for our WOTI. We actually went through your list in our dictionary meeting yesterday. And your top 10 is good. Your top 10 is, like, very on what we were interested in, both, like, elbows up especially. Like, we were surprised that elbows up didn't win the Canadian word of the year because this is one of the first years they did that on the national level.

13:33It ended up being maple washing, right? Interesting. You all may have talked about that, but elbows up is so good. Similar thing. It's, and so, yeah. And we love, we love, like, an anthem, like a rallying cry. Yeah. Well, thank the listeners because they're the ones who voted. You know, they made the list what it is. Well, it's a great list. It's a really good list. Yeah. Ours, we had, Reheat Nachos is a fun one. And I, I'm glad that it actually made it through because there were a couple fun ones that didn't, you know, I don't get to choose.

14:04I have, I have my favorites, but it's chosen in the room. So, like, I'm, I was glad Reheat Nachos made it. I don't think I know what Reheat Nachos means. Okay. It doesn't sound great. It's not great. Um, you know how, like, they keep remaking the same movies. Like, there's been, like, the new Superman was like, didn't they just do a new Superman? Yeah. There's been, like, how many Superman? That's Reheated Nachos. But then also, it can be more insulting where it's like, you, you know, redo something, but it's not as good.

14:41So, I've heard, I, or I've seen, like, one of our examples we're putting in the dictionary, um, is Sabrina Carpenter is Britney Spears' Reheated Nachos, which is, like, not nice. Oh. That's not a nice thing to say. That's so disrespectful. And I don't know if I would exactly compare them in that way personally.

14:59But, but, but that's how people are using it. Yeah, that's the thing in Piscina Aguera. But, besides that point. But if you're, if you just keep repeating yourself, oh my gosh, your show, you just keep saying the same things over and over again. Yes, like Reheated Nachos. Right. So, to reheat someone's nachos. And also, like, Reheated Nachos are inferior. Like, the idea is, like, you have nachos, but, like, you bring home leftover nachos and you do what with them? Like, there's no scenario where they end up as good as the original beautiful crispy nachos? That is a little bit how I feel about covers in music.

15:33So, I play music and sometimes with friends. And sometimes people want to do a cover of a famous song. And then we rehearse it a little bit and then someone's like, no, but we have to do it exactly like this because that's how they record it on the CD. And I'm like, yeah, but we're not that band, though. And we're never going to produce that. So, like, I think it's better if we, like, make it bossa nova instead and make it different. Right. Like, you blend the nachos and, like, make a bread and fry it. Do something else. Yeah, now it's good. Yeah, because you're not going to make the same thing.

16:05But there are some covers that are really good, yeah. I have a cover beef. My young ones were like, oh, we got to listen to this song, Royals, by Walk Off the Earth. Oh, interesting. And I said, Walk Off the Earth. That's a Lorde song. Is it the same song? It was the same song. They're like, yeah, we played it at school. And then they have this other great song called Hello. I'm like, okay, just a darn minute. We are going to listen to the original version before we do whatever Walk Off the Earth is doing, okay? Because they're basically a cover band.

16:37They don't do – and they're fine. They're fine. But do they do an interesting take on it? No, they do not. Oh, you're like, am I – Then I'm a little bit like, meh. It's reheated nachos. Yeah. So we are hearing real nachos first, and then we can go on to the reheated version. All right. Yeah. Thank you for this. I think that needed some explanation. What's the next one for the big category that you want to do? What's another one that you have comments on? You know, I like Amphifa.

17:09I like Amphifa. That was cute. Of course. I didn't – I never heard it until I saw it on your list. Oh. It's the frog. It's protest frog. I was protest frog for Halloween. I didn't realize I was a member of Amphifa.

17:24Is it really being used? I don't know. I'm on loose, guy. Don't lie to me.

17:33I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's actually being used. Okay. I'm confused, by the way, in general. So, as a European, like, like, Antifa exists in a lot of different places, and it exists in Germany and Sweden, et cetera, and it's actually, like, known for different things, and I'm a little bit confused by how it seems to be working in the U.S. Also, the name – anyway. Amphifa. Amphabians against fascism. Yeah. We need to bring all the members of the animal kingdom in on this.

18:03We need that. Okay. I'm getting rage bait, which is one of my favorites. Bait was one of ours, because we've seen, you know, rage bait and all kinds of other kinds of bait. But also, I said once on the Australian ABC, you know, there's a lot to get angry about, and that's okay, because there's some kinds of anger that we need. But rage bait is not really good for us. And please make sure that your level of anger is commensurate with what you can do about

18:35it, because helpless anger is a lot like depression. Yeah. I think that's true. And also, it's just always worth reminding yourself that when you're in social media, one way that some people can make money, or a lot of people, is by engagement. And that engagement doesn't matter if it's positive or negative. So people are trying to make money of you. By commenting on a video, you are driving that video's engagement, and that if they are in, like, a partnership program or something, they can get money for it. There's another category here that is similar that I saw, which I was going to have as word

19:06of the week for an upcoming show. I don't know if I should mention it now or not. Why not? We can bring it up again next time. Vague posting. Oh, good. Good. Of which sub-tweeting is a category, arguably. Ah, I'm so annoyed by vague posting. Yeah, it's when you post something on a social media feed or something, or you could probably, you could even use it about talking, when you say something, like, very vague, like, oh, I hate it when, did she really have to do that? With, like, no context.

19:38And what happens then is that curious people respond and are like, who do you mean? What does she do? Who is she? To the comments, folks. And that is a similar way of milling engagement as rage-baiting, because you're trying to provoke people into commenting on your video. However, it's a little bit, it's more frustrating and annoying. It's not enraging. Yeah, that's true. So in that way, I kind of think it's better. It's better than rage-baiting, possibly.

20:09And then there's some kinds of vagueness that are very useful. For example, I've seen a hundred posts that go exactly like this. When it finally happens, it's going to be the most epic day. And everybody knows what we're talking about. Everybody knows. No, wait, what is it? Yes, it is. No, no, I don't know what it is. It's exactly what you're thinking. I listen to the QAnon Anonymous podcast. If you say that, I'm going to think you mean the storm. And I don't think you mean the storm. No, I do not mean the storm.

20:41Kelly doesn't know what I'm talking about. I'm not a- Your version? Anymore. And the reason why we don't say that is because that kind of thing can get you in trouble, traditionally, but this is why people vague post it instead. You guys are over-worrying, I think. Um, no. Kelly? I don't know. Am I over-worrying? I don't think so. Thank you. Let's go on to- Should we go on to the- Is it time for the winner? Or do we want to play around with some of the other ones? Maybe we better go through all of these. The algorithm.

21:11Right. The algorithm, like Megan Thee Stallion, or Thee Ohio State University. It is- It is the algorithm. Thee algorithm. Which I think is really cool because this one I do see used a lot. And it is people talking about, like, all, like, it as one concept. Like, the algorithm is everywhere. It's, it could be, like, on your platform. It could be on the, your Google search, you know, or, or, like, you've been talking to a friend and then you get an ad

21:44on your phone for some product or device or service, right? That people refer to that experience, like, the experience of living with assisted technology, assistive technology, as interacting with the algorithm. So, it's an entity. An unknown black box that you've got to appeal to if you want your content to be seen or just the way that it pushes stuff at us. And so, part of the question is, like, do people think of the algorithm as an actual physical entity when they refer to it, like, that is stored somewhere and exists?

22:17Or do they refer to it like love or sincerity or honesty? As this thing that is, like, this, you know, oh, you know, superficial overlord. Yeah. Well, part of the algorithm is, is, like, the exposure and engagement and the things we talked about just before, like, rage baiting and vague posting and the way that platforms want to keep you on the platform so they want to have engaging content. But then, as a lot of, like, YouTubers will talk about and also TikTok users, there seems to be little hand tweaks to the algorithm sometimes, where, like, in the early days of YouTube,

22:50there used to be YouTube Spotlight, where, like, employees, I think, at the YouTube offices would pick videos that they liked. And that's a very, like, hand-cranked way of messing with the algorithm. And various content creators would sometimes say, like, oh, last week, like, these and these kinds of videos of mine were performing like this, and, like, this week, they're not. So, someone twisted a knob somewhere, and they don't know why. And then they try and, like, adapt.

23:20But this also gets into a word that I think we've had in our list. I don't know if you had, Kelly, which is audience capture. Oh, no. That's good. Yeah. Which is when you tailor your content so much to your audience that you become captured by your audience, and if they want more rage bait, you might start making more rage bait, sort of sacrificing your content creator integrity to please whatever seems to please the algorithm

23:50gods and your audience, which, yeah, just depressing. Here's my hot take. This is my hot take about the algorithm. You know when people say, I talked to my friend about skiing, and now I'm getting skiing ads? Yeah. Yeah. I think this happens all the time, and what I think is happening is just there are so many ads being spread out to so many people that it would be weird if you didn't talk about clam chowder and then get clam chowder ads.

24:20Yeah. And maybe you were getting them before, but you didn't notice because it wasn't significant. I think it's just... There's a confirmation bias about a Meinhof effect for sure, but then also, most of us are basic bitches. Like, you talked about skiing in Northern Europe in January. Oh, wow. Other people did as well. Oh, really? Hmm. Wow. You're not that special, honey. No, man. Tone of doubt. Yeah. I'm taking voracious notes over here off the...

24:50Because this is so interesting. Oh, really? Yeah. I really love the idea of thinking about how this concept has... Or whatever people are sensing, when they are saying the algorithm did this, the algorithm... Because we have tons of examples of it being used in this way, but my job is just to document the examples done. But the scientist and analyst in me is like, what is happening? And it's so fascinating to think about how we have interacted with this concept differently throughout time, like, as, you know, these technologies have been evolving.

25:22And I absolutely remember the YouTube spotlight thing of being like, it did feel like that. It did feel like it was, you know, equal parts, equal parts program and programmer who were working to serve content each day when you're on the platform. And it maybe doesn't... The programmer's presence is less detectable today, I feel. So that's interesting. And yeah, and I love the idea of, yeah, like vague posting being something that could be

25:55intentional or unintentional. You know, like some people are just subtweeting. You know, they're just like in a flow state, like reacting to what's happening and not thinking like, oh, I'm crafting content for an audience. But then sometimes content can be crafted for an audience that is intentionally vague. It gets you a bunch of people paying attention. And then you get stuck in that wheel of what those handful of people that you've now captured their attention, that you get stuck in what they want and what the algorithm wants. So you are, you're not creative anymore.

26:26Like even if you were creating something that was intended to gather people, now you don't even, you don't even get to be commercially creative. You just get to be responsive, which is not as fun. And yeah, yeah, for sure. And a lot of people online might also be vague posting, like you said, unintentionally, because they don't think about the fact that they made a public post. Right. Right. Like you think of like some people might use Twitter and most of the time they only get engagement from like 10 people that they know and they know what they mean when they vague post. And then one of them spreads outside of their circle and they're like, oh, I didn't talk to

26:59you anyway. So, but you did, you are shouting in the town square, you know, and everyone is here. True. Everyone is here. Let's see. There was Doge. I, you know, I was in Japan recently and I saw an actual Shiba Inu and it was so cute. And I thought it's a, I feel gross. I feel bad now. It used to be whimsical and playful and now it just feels bad because it's Elon Musk cancelling a program, USAID, for among other things, stealing our data, whatever, but cancelling

27:33a program that was keeping people alive. It amounted to a rounding error in the U.S. budget and it got cancelled and now hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people are going to die or are already dead.

27:50This is terrible. It is not the fault of the Shiba Inu you saw in Japan though. I know. That bird, bird, that dog. That dog is blameless. That dog is blameless. I did not impute any ill will to the dog, but I did feel, I did feel a bit of ick. Really? For that matter, Elon, just because of the word, Elon Musk is being hauled before Congress to testify to his role in, in Doge and in cancelling USAID, which he didn't get to do

28:26that. That was illegal and unconstitutional. He didn't get to divert money that was congressionally appointed, but I'm yelling into the tube here. We'll be documenting just the verb form that get, get to get doged.

28:42That's what we'll be putting a, a small entry in the dictionary for. What happened to your research budget? Got doged. Got doged. And also Elon Musk ended up getting doged. So it kind of, yeah, we'll see what happens. You know, we did a story once on, on a young guy who was engaged in the Herculaneum scrolls project. These burnt blackened scrolls that were rolled up and he, you know, they, they scanned them 3D. Oh yeah. And this one guy, he was a SpaceX intern named Luke Ferretor.

29:15He, he figured out the first word. He found the word purple. He developed a technique to make the word stand out and he noticed the word purple. And now everybody's found lots and lots of words on the Herculaneum scroll. Yeah. He was a doge bro. He was a doge bag. Unfortunately. Really sad. You know, people can do something cool and then something bad. That's true. And also I would like, I, they are doing, they're doing a lot of really technically cool things with text, you know, like, like you said, like they stole all our data.

29:48Like, yeah, because they're feeding it into these actually really sick algorithms, which like I wish we were using for good. That's all. Like I should have seen this. Some of their models are really doing cool stuff. That is like stuff that we used to talk about when we would be like, it would be so great if you could X, like with like certain, like if, if we had like, I don't know, every recording of every phone call that it's been, this phone call may be recorded for quality assurance.

30:18If I could just have those recordings, I could do so much. I could do so much to improve automatic speech recognition technologies and make them more equitable and do X, Y, and Z. And that's like not what they're going to use it for. Um, and so it's, it's, it's frustrating. It's professionally frustrating because it will take us, it will take us like independently decades, decades, maybe, maybe longer with no funding to develop that same, like a parallel technology to use for research for one thing, but then also altruistic purposes.

30:53And so now I'm screaming into the void, but it does become this thing of, it's like, dang, like I wish that we just had like the access ability talent, um, to have gotten there first or something. Like, I don't know. It's yeah. I mean, I don't know if we don't, like there's a lot of really cool things that tech is built on, that is built on a lot of open source nerds that are nice. Oh, sure. Right? Like a lot of things wouldn't be possible if like Linus Torvald didn't create Unix.

31:24And, uh, I kind of think we sometimes don't give those kinds of people enough attention. And also one of the redeeming qualities about Elon Musk is that he wants to be seen as cool by people who are actually cool. So that might mean that he makes some things open sometimes, uh, maybe. That's true. Um, one, and this is, this was way back when I started following him. He, he opened all of Tesla's patents. All of Tesla's patents are still open for anybody who wants to use them to build good electric

31:57cars. He says, we won't come after you unless you'd like try to lock them down and shut everybody out. But there has been an openness historically. So. So anyway, that was before it became gross. Should we, should we move on from Doge and get onto the winner? The winner was Kelly. Slop. Yeah. Slop. Slop. A brilliant choice. And I actually saw this one coming. Oh yeah. It's good. A couple other dictionaries also chose it. So it's not a huge surprise.

32:27Yeah. Yeah. But I liked, um, seeing slop as kind of a combining form. Like AI slop, but also what is, what are some other examples? Friend slop is one. Friend slop. What is friend slop? It's like a, it's like a genre of like game or show or something. Um, so there's this post from the AV club that says not every co-op game is friend slop. So I guess like friend slop is like, oh, there are things that are not competitive, like ways

33:01that we interact with each other that are not competitive or like shows that like are just about friendship. And some of them are genuine shows, but some of them, again, like in this vague posting situations, like they move into content that is targeted for just like friendship as like a, I think that that's like the friend slop part of it. Um, wait, is friends not parasocial content? No, I don't think so. Friend slop is like, cause a lot of these posts are talking about like co-op gaming, like that

33:32there's a bunch of like board game, like things that you can physically buy in the store that are supposed to be for three to four players that are supposed to, but are just like junky. Like there's a lot of them that are like, um, mystery solving games where the four of you are supposed to sit down and solve a mystery, but the stuff that they give you is kind of basic AF. So it's like the content is sloppy. I think we'll get to see a lot more of slop as we go on and maybe we'll value things that are individually created.

34:03We documented the combining form last year. It did very well in the 2024, um, Wodeys and, and, and we, and it's our winner and we will be talking more about it because it's been incredibly productive in the last 12 months. Um, moving, moving very fast. AI slop was our second place last year as well. There's a new content type that's turning up on my TikTok feed that, um, is short form drama videos in like ancient China or sometimes ancient Japan or Omegaverse.

34:34And it's all like terrible actors, terrible scripts, terrible line performance. And it's like one minute. And it looks like if it's like the comment underneath is often like, if not AI slop, why AI slop shaped? Because it is actual recordings. There's actual actors and lighting and costumes and, you know, makeup and whatever else. It's just quite bad. And I have yet to understand the business model of these companies that are putting this out

35:05because anyway, people like it. So I don't know what to call it though. I haven't found a word. It's some sort of slop. Let's just do a really quick run through of the other categories. Here we go. Most creative word of the year. The winner was reheat nachos. Do we have anything to say about any of the other ones? I'm noticing fridge cigarette, which is going to the fridge and getting a fridge cigarette, which is like a Diet Coke or some kind of drink, I suppose, for its addictive qualities.

35:37I wish that that had won. That was like my favorite for the whole year because it's so funny. And it already, it had like really dedicated memes. It's a Diet Coke. I never saw it. I never saw it. I think it's so funny. But okay, I'll be watching out for it. Informal word of the year, 6-7 was the winner, but I noticed there were some that I just hadn't seen. Since you put this on the list, I have noticed smoke. Don't want no smoke. You don't want no smoke.

36:08Don't want no smoke, I feel like, is the most common because people like look at, yeah, like someone not engaging in some sort of, and it's like, yeah, they don't want that smoke. Like there's either going to be a fight or someone was going to ask somebody out and they chickened out. Or there's like another like clear leader in the category, like Beyonce or something. And it'd be like, yeah, no one wants that smoke. Like no one is trying to come for the crown because you don't want that smoke. Do you have any intuition as to why the word smoke is employed here?

36:41I think in some ways it's like, like drama, you know, like if people are going to verbally fight before they physically fight, it kind of parallels like smoke before fire. Fire, got it, got it. Okay, that's, that's good. That's fair. That makes more, that makes more sense. Okay, let's go on to political word of the year. The winner was icy conditions, which means? Yeah, so icy conditions are like the ways in which folks have been signaling that ice is in a neighborhood.

37:17And what's interesting is that they're using like weather apps in some cases to like, because you can update, you can like live update what you're seeing on your map to be like, there's ice outside or there's ice in this neighborhood. There's ice on this street. Ice, of course, which stands for? Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers. So it is the winter and it has been very icy, but we're getting icy conditions reported on weather apps in places where meteorologically it is not icy.

37:48I guess that like incorrect usage of the weather app is at least, the worst case is that people are more careful in driving. Sure, I guess. And if they were trying to drive through that street, they couldn't drive through it because uniformed officers are patrolling anyway. Did you hear that there's ice officers at the Winter Olympics in Italy? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I did. What are they doing? I did hear that. I am also confused. And the U.S. Olympic troop, I think, has officially said like, it's none of our like reasons.

38:22One theory is that they're there to protect J.D. Vance. I thought he had bodyguards. I don't know why he... Yeah, he has the Secret Service, right? I don't understand it. I think the Secret Service does that. Yeah, that's interesting. I've just been so impressed by the way that the people have come together. They've correctly interpreted the presence of ice as damage and they're routing around it. They're finding ways around it and largely staying very nonviolent. It's the people. It makes my heart feel good.

38:53Yeah. Even though it's a dreadful time. Okay. Any more things we want to talk about for political word of the year we had? Oh, disappear. To disappear someone. God, what a dark timeline. I know. I know. But we had some folks who came up to the microphone and made really well-reasoned argument for us not to vote for this. And so I think that's part of the reason why maybe it didn't win the category. And it was a good argument in that the ways in which this disappear as a verb has been used in describing conflicts in South America, Central and South America, particularly.

39:33What is happening in the United States, they argued, has not risen to that level. And so folks are using this word, but it is not the ways in which it has been traditionally used and is currently used and is understood in international law. And so they were like, we don't think that we should mark it as an interesting change or anything like that. And so I think that's why it didn't win. Because there was a really good linguistic argument at the microphone, which was nice to hear.

40:06Yeah, I love it when people come prepared. Thank you for bringing notes. Not to mention the way that when someone is disappeared, it's passive voice and it turns it into, instead of government agents made them disappear or kidnapped them or abducted them. It makes it seem sort of with a lack of agency. And that's not what, that's not the right impression. Oh, I thought it was like a transitive verb. Yes, it's taking disappear and turning it into a transitive.

40:37Yes, it's true. But we do typically say they were disappeared. Yeah, but you can also say they were disappeared by blah, blah. Which is not proper transitive, but no. Still passive voice, but I don't have a problem with passive voice, but I can see why you would want to actually say who's doing the thing.

40:55Okay, let's go on to digital word of the year. The winner was slop, but I noticed Italian brain rot. That was hilarious. Yeah, another Gen Alpha innovation, right? Italian brain rot. It's a little racist. And also complicated, but Italian brain rot is these ideas of like, we were already saying like skibbity toilet and Ohio riz muntier, whatever. And this ends up being like, yeah, ballerina cappuccino and things like that, which, but is like tied in the same way skibbity toilet is tied to like a video, like a viral video, like the ballerina cappuccino.

41:35So the thing is, though, there was a really short distance between when this was like a real thing that young people were doing that was just fun on the internet. And when that behavior got capitalized on to send them all sorts of nonsense to captivate that audience. And so if you Google, like if you were a kid and you put your ballerina cappuccino in your iPad, you would get a video. But some of those videos end up being like not produced by the people who are originally doing them and go to fund all kinds of terrible things we've since found out.

42:06So it's like this thing. Oh, similar to what's happening with ASLAP generally on YouTube, where it's a lot of like really questionable stuff. Yeah. Great names, though. Great names, but it sucks because it's like it is like people like in the age range of like six to 13 that are clicking on these things. And so that sucks. And that's why we don't have YouTube on the kids iPads. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go into most useful.

42:38The winner was, that's AI. Expression of distrust when determining that something presented is real is in fact AI generated. Good one. Yeah. Nominated from the floor by Nicole Holiday, who I know is also a friend of the pod. Yeah. Yeah. She was like, I hear it all the time. People say it and they say it in reference to things that certainly aren't AI. Like when, like, you know, two people discussing like the behavior of a third individual and someone being like, that's AI.

43:09Like this person is full of it. That's dumb. You know, like it's dumb. It's not. Yeah. And so that's, that's so interesting because that's spreading fast, but it's spreading fast in a different way than some of these other productive compounds we've talked about. Notice also rot is breaking away. Like there's bed rotting, but also brain rot. So rot is becoming its own thing. Very cool. Just rot itself. Yes. Yeah. Bed rot for sure. And then the last category we've got is most likely to succeed.

43:39The winner was chopped from African-American English, something ugly or undesirable. There were others. When we had chopped on the, on our episode as a word of the week last year, I was looking up some of the origins and I found a video of someone explaining it. And that video was like, I don't know, like 10 plus years old. Yeah. I think it was a Toronto based musician. Like it was like it chopped is not new. It's old. No. It's old, but it is getting into that. Yeah.

44:10It's the thing that we see very often with, especially American English, right? Of like words coming from either Afro-American English or gay community and then making it through. I was at a pub quiz recently and one of the rounds was identify alpha slang. So it had like Ohio and stuff. And one of the words was slay. And I was like, that's not alpha slang, is it? But if you, yeah, if that's where you heard it. Well, okay.

44:40So like there's, there are levels to these things where appropriation, accommodation, appropriation, acquisition. Acquisition is like part of this first level because we have to, again, like we have to let the nine, the seven to 13 year olds encounter the language where, where, where they are. They can't help but be seven. And so it's, so if they're saying slay a lot, then it is gen alpha language, even if they don't know, it's not an expectation that you understand the full etymology of every word you employ.

45:12Right. So that's okay. But then, but then this year, Valentine's, Valentine's Day, um, kitschy gifts in the United States, a lot of them have the word slay on it. And that's like, like, it's like a little teddy bear with a, with a heart and the heart says slay. Nice. So, and, and, and I saw cards with it on there and stuff like that. When you get to that level, that's like full on appropriation. The, the, like when it makes it, when it goes corporate, when the word goes corporate, when it ends up on t-shirts and teddy bears cups and pencils and yeah.

45:51But wait, there's a thing I don't understand. First of all, I don't live in a country where Valentine's is like huge deal. I don't really understand the whole type of thing, but I, I consume enough American media to like kind of get it. But I thought that if it was slay in like the imperative, it's a bit similar to like, uh, you go, like hooray for you. Exactly. But why would you want to say like, you go girl to your date on Valentine's Day? But maybe you want to give a, like it's Galentine's Day and you're meeting up with your girlfriends and celebrating friend love.

46:23Oh shit. Right. Sorry. No, it's. I think of Valentine's Day as like a romantic couple thing. It is. It is. I, it's many things. Okay. It's many things as there are people. Yeah. Maybe the most like corporate trap holiday I feel of all the, of all the holidays. I could be wrong. I think when, when it comes to like East, um, Halloween and Valentine's Day, I think Europe is like at least like 10 years. Like for me, Halloween, like I prefer that it's scary. Like I love Halloween. We had like a scary doll that's scared of all guests and I had like weird contacts and like, you know, scary.

46:59But I know that in America you can also just like dress up as Ariana Grande and that's Halloween. Like there's Halloween and then there's gay Halloween, which was, which was also nominated gay Halloween. Let's not forget, um, slay the interjection. Maybe you've been talking about that all along, but somebody sent me a message saying, Oh, I'm not too late for the mail out. Am I? Here's my address. And I'm like, yeah, you got it. It's, it's going out to you. And they were like, slay. Thank you. Which means awesome.

47:29Yeah. Cool. Good. Got it. Cool. Yeah. So watch out for that. So that one's fun. And it is changing. So that's like, what's interesting about it is like, yeah, like words change through use. Right. So whoever is using them is like reshaping them. And that's so neat. It is neat. Tell me about performative mail. This is the one that was the newest to me. I was unprepared. We have a wonderful, a wonderful entry for performative mail from Nancy Friedman. That's, that's coming into dictionary.

47:59She's, she submitted it yesterday and it looks great. Performative mail to me. When I read the description to me, what I think is metrosexual, which I know we don't use that term anymore, but it seems so similar to the ways in which the, the metrosexual was described back in the day. Is that back in the day now? I suppose so. Like 2010-ish. 2010, 20, 2009. Yeah. So the, the metrosexual is like, is a, is a clean guy who's dressed well and enjoys hanging

48:33out in, you know, like they're saying like coffee shops, like this person like has a matcha, right? Um, performative mail. But in some ways, performative mail is like, um, less positive. It has like more, a more negative sentiment or it's used in certain ways. Like the way it was described at the microphone was that like women on dating apps will like see a guy, like as you're swiping, you'll see a man who's like, look at me with my matcha.

49:04Like, look at me in a nice pair of pants. Like, look at me out wearing a scarf and be like performative mail. Like he's trying to be the opposite of the dude holding a fish or something in all of his pictures. But like. I listened to Sarah McLachlan. I listened to Sarah McLachlan. I'm a feminist. Look, I'm at a protest. Like, yeah. Well, in defense of men, I don't know why I started to do this like this. Can you go badly? Oh dear. Bad start. Bad start. Uh, I mean, dating apps are a place where you perform.

49:36Sure, sure, sure. It's true. Yes. Right? So like, and, and, um, I feel bad for the people who just like, like matcha and think they had a cute pig at the coffee shop. But that's, I know, I, I link this more to like something I've seen, which is like people who really go in for especially like progressive political things very quickly, very deeply. I am very suspicious of people who like go from like nothing to wearing like, for example,

50:06uh, what are they called in English? Uh, is it called? Kibbeh? Like a Palestinian pattern scarf? Mm-hmm. Kefia. Like if, if someone goes from nothing to that and then a lot of other accoutrements in a very short space of time and get very vocal about it, they have a tendency to burn out within like a short amount of time and then go back to not doing that at all. Um, but I thought metrosexual was also like the idea that they were like half signaling that they were gay. Was that the case? So, so.

50:37Well, they didn't mind a bit of grooming. That's all. I think, I think that's where it comes into like the slightly pejorative nature. So like, I think that these terms like originally like metrosexual was like something that's trying to describe like an alternative masculinity or something. And then, then people hear the word and they attach it and use it like derogatorily towards people who are maybe like not straight appearing. As a European, this is extra confusing because some of the things that were associated with metrosexual is just like how a lot of European men just dress.

51:09Like tight pants? Like wearing tight pants? It's just like wear pants that like, no, but just pants that fit at all. Uh, that's hard for men. That's hard for American men. It's, it's really hard for American men to wear pants that fit. It's very difficult.

51:25That's so funny. Is that because they're secretly lumbersexuals? I don't know. Is that what's going on? Because, yeah, because we've had these other like sexual like as like a productive compound, like since metrosexual, like there have been like others. Uh, but, but I, I think that this is interesting because like, yeah, the way it made me feel old, it made me feel old. The ways that the, the, the women who were coming up to the microphone who were describing the performative males, like, I don't know him. So like the men in my, none of the men in my life are the, whatever it is, whatever it is.

51:59I don't know. I don't know him. I have this so often when, when people describe shitty men, I'm like, I don't know these people. I'm, you tell me they exist. I will believe you. I've never met them personally. So I don't know what you're talking about really. Um, but when it comes to this, I'm wearing like performative male, like they're all performing. Like the, the, the guy in the, the, with the fish is also performing. So this is only attached to like what is seen as like catfishing as more socially progressive than you are. It's a, it's a new virtue signaling.

52:30That's what it is. Yeah. And it's like, it's like an aesthetic. Closely aligned with the virtue signaling. Like in the idea, it is closely aligned with like virtue slash vice signaling. Only ever applied to lefties. Yeah. I think that it's that. And so, but it does come from like a, like a Butler, like a Judith Butler version of performative where it's saying like, oh, it's an aesthetic. Like there's an assert, a very specific type of aesthetic that like people are appealing to. Um, but this is me in the moment of also learning about, you know, deeply learning about it.

53:04Cause I read Nancy's entry yesterday.