#WOTY Word of the Year

[kwekstra]

Highlights from the conference room where they nominated contenders for Word of the Year 2023:

• They put Skibidi Toilet on the projector to explain what “skibidi” means.

• Baby Gronk was mentioned.

• We discussed the Rizzler.

• “Cunty” was nominated.

• “Enshittification” was suggested for EVERY category.

• “Blue Check” (like from Twitter) was briefly defined as “Someone who will not Shut The Fuck Up”

• The person writing notes briefly defined babygirl as “referencing [The Speaker]”. He is now being called babygirl in the linguist groupchats.

• MULTIPLE people raised their hand to say “I cannot stress this enough: ‘Babygirl’ refers to a GROWN MAN”

[amsomerville]

My Word of the Year for 2023 (#WOTY)

My Word of the Year for 2023 (#WOTY)

[wonderwomandebz]

What's Been on my April Calendar? #WBOYC

Autumnal April in Tumbarumba is a beautiful time of year. It's time for What's Been on My April Calendar for our #WBOYC linkup. What's been happening and am I thriving?

Hello friends I can’t believe we’re here at the end of another month! Which means it’s time for another edition of What’s Been on Your Calendar #WBOYC, where together with friends and co-hosts, Sue, Donna and Jo, we share what’s been happening in our worlds in a monthly wrap-up post. You’re very welcome to join in. One of my calendars had these words of advice – so true: April calendar…

[mishacrews]

Where Flowers Bloom: My Word of the Year, 2024

It’s become a tradition amongst my friends for us to each choose a word to define the coming year. I gave a lot of thought to what 2024’s word would be, and here’s what I came up with: Bloom Definitions: A flower; blossom. I want to surround myself with flowers and plants and delightful things this year, and I want to share them with you, dear friends, so we can remind ourselves that the world…

[ritusmiles]

Word Of The Year - 2024 edition! #WOTY Balance

Another new year has arrived. Hello, 2024. And wishing you all a Happy New Year, too! I’ll keep it a teeny bit subdued, as when I get excited about something at the start, things have a tendency to nosedive… It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it? We end with awful atrocities still happening in Ukraine, the awful war between Hamas and Israel, tearing Gaza apart, and poverty on the increase in so…

[moochou-eats-paper]

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE

guess what fucking won word of the year

I am going to cry, you motherfucks

[shann-on]

2023 WOTY + 1 Year Blog Anniversary

Photo by rüveyda Happy New Year, everyone! 🙂 I’m a little late in writing this blog post, as it’s about halfway through January, but I thought that I’d still share my new WOTY (word of the year) with you. But before that… Thank you for being a reader of mine, and continuing to be subscribed to my blog! ❤ On the 1st of January, 2022, I started my blog here on WordPress. I had no idea what I…

[darkmaga-returns]

By Noel S. Williams

It’s the time of the year when cloistered, lexicographical twits foist their Words of the Year upon us. Often, they are DEI contrivances that seek to normalize peculiar or fringe behaviors.  For example, in recent years the American Dialectic Society has chosen “tender-age shelter” (2018); “(My) Pronouns” (2019), to reflect the increased personal expression of gender identity; and the suffix “ussy” (I’m reluctant to dig deep, but apparently it is some kind of LGBT slang) in 2022.

At least this year the Cambridge Dictionary linguists and lexicographers may have stumbled on a word that is partially deserving of WOTY status, albeit for the wrong reasons.

Right, because they chose “manifest” to be the 2024 WOTY.

Wrong, because they didn’t justify it with the most obvious representations of manifest.

Apparently, a new connotation for the old word (used by Chaucer and Shakespeare in various forms) is contained in the verb “manifesting.”  Essentially, this just seems like a nebulous new way of visualizing success, but has gained traction among influencers, and those influenced.  I’m sure it’s just an example of hindsight bias, but many celebrities swear by it.

If an athlete who won an event, an actor who scored a role, or a singer who won a Grammy (or any “average” Joe/Jane accomplishment, for that matter) wants to retroactively attest to their “manifestations,” then good for them.  However, I believe this was once attributable to the power of positive thinking -- along with talent and mostly hard work, of course.

[rocketlanterns]

Sorry, I was just looking at the archive list of American Dialect Association word(s) of the year, and they got the definition of "yeet" so hilariously wrong that I cannot continue to take these people seriously.

Source: https://americandialect.org/woty/all-of-the-words-of-the-year-1990-to-present

[afactaday]

#aFactADay2024

#1384: Germany's word of the year is always interesting to follow, but the spin-offs are often more fun. Jugendwort des Jahres (youth word otY) i heard about because Tagesschau's presenter, Susanne Daubner, stepped down and had to come back due to popular demand this year. those are mostly slang from a few years ago tho, kinda like the Oxford WotY. more apt is the Unwort des Jahres (un-word otY): these are often words that package or hide infringements of human rights recently popularised and applied wrongly in the news. 2020 was Corona-Diktatur, 2021 was Pushback (as in what you do to refugees at the border...), then Klimaterroristen (climate terrorists) and Remigration. on a lighter note, there's also the Anglizismus des Jahres: eg, 2021 had boostern (to get a (COVID) booster) with runner-ups of Long Covid, QR-Code, cringe, and woke. these are all the German btw - i'm not translating. my favourite was 2019 "OK Boomer", implying that's one word. kinda is

[kwekstra]

Ahaha I have just come across your WOTY nominations posts. I work for the Oxford English Dictionary. At risk of corroborating every stereotype ever proposed for my countrymen, I have to relate that our equivalent conference was Not Like That, and that people here are still pretty caught up, on multiple levels, with “mid”

Yea I was so surprised! People at the LSA convention kept telling me to go to the WOTYs and I was like "how fun could this possibly be?" But I was wrong! It was such an absurd and hilarious experience. I think it helped that the person who had control of the projector (who I *think* was the VP of communications for the American Dialect Society) had a penchant for causing chaos on purpose.

[killianczuba]

Somehow the most surprising new addition (so far) to the word list: "weird."

Would not have guessed certain Republican leaders would so strongly dislike being called weird. Dems are really getting a lot out of it at the mo. Hearing it used as a kind of insulting/patronizing descriptor by so many professional politicians and journalists is kind of trippy. I don't hate it, by any means--and it's totally true, both colloquially and etymologically speaking--but it sounds a little funny when I hear it used in serious contexts.

Maybe it sounds odd in some of these cases because it's super Germanic? A politician saying "weird" instead of "strange" or "sinister" (both from Latin) is... weird. But Germanic words do traditionally get regular people more excited than those that are Latin/Greek-based (unless you are a fancy nerd). But even a fancy nerd can be swayed at least a little by a rousing speech about freedom! (which is Germanic!)

Ooooooh. Y'know what? Let's assess the roots of our Words of the Year (WotY) so far:

Weird (Germanic)

Brat (likely Celtic)

Vibes (abbr. from Vibration; Latin)

Unhinged (Germanic)

Unprecedented (Latin)

2 and 2 for Latin v Germanic--and 1 for Celtic, which is pretty fascinating. Not a lot of those floating around.

Will Germanic words dominate 2024 election speeches and/or subsequent discourse, or will the language of Law and Science re-emerge to take the stage by this fall? Maybe we'll see a few more with less prevalent roots! Regardless, I applaud the speech writers and marketers who can bridge the gaps between them and make everyone feel patriotic.

Whenever I think about individual words getting people riled up, I think about Tolkien. He and Le Guin are certainly watching from the next world with great linguistic interest.

[wonderwomandebz]

Welcome to the first month of 2024 and What's Been on Your Calendar #WBOYC?

This year my WOTY is Thrive and I'll be sharing insights into what I've been doing to thrive in my monthly updates for our What's Been on Your Calendar #WBOYC linkup. What have you been up to?

Hello friends January can be a bit hit and miss can’t it? Either really busy, or slow and steady, as we all return to something resembling normality – whatever that is! Strap yourself in there’s a lot to get through – much more than I was expecting to be honest! (I do apologise in advance if this sounds like I’m rambling but it has been quite a big month and I kept remembering things to add…

[ritusmiles]

Word Of The Year - 2023 edition! #WOTY Strength #JusJoJan

Word Of The Year – 2023 edition! #WOTY Strength #JusJoJan

Another new year has arrived. Hello, 2023. And wishing you all a Happy New Year, too! I keep it a teeny bit subdued, as everything I get excited about something at the start, things have a tendency to nosedive… There have been tremendous highs, like my publishing contract and the rerelease of Marriage Unarranged, and the positive outcome of the OFSTED inspection at school, but there have been…

[barbh]

Am I Being Renewed?

We are nearly halfway through 2024, which means it is the perfect time to reflect on what God has purposed via my One-Word (WOTY) – RENEWAL!!! Lisa’s latest challenge is below: You’ve made it to June! Congratulations, you’re halfway through the year with your One Word. Now is a great time to re-motivate yourself by remembering WHY you chose this word in the first place. REFLECT ON YOUR…

[fromjasonxp]

Jon Bakos live posting winners of Words of the Year from the American Dialect Society.

Here are a few winners:

Digital word of the year: Enshittification

AI-Related woty: Stochastic Parrot (yay Timnet Gebru)

Political woty: 🍉 (Palestinian solidarity)

Most useful woty: (derogatory) (a personal fav.)

#woty2023