What has been YOUR word of the year?
Dictionary.com just announced that their Word of 2024 is “demure,” which became a popular meme on TikTok. If you spend a lot of time online, riding slang and trends, it may have been your choice too.
They picked it over other viral sensations, like “brat,” as in “brat summer”, “brainrot,” which is “an inability to think clearly caused by excessive consumption of low-quality online content”, and “weird.”
Dictionary.com said demure had a “meteoric rise in usage” this year, especially this summer. It was up 1,200% between January and August.
Their word of the year LAST YEAR was “hallucinate.” That’s a reference to the rise of chatbots and A.I. that can often derail and spur misinformation.
(Careful Ahead) If you DON’T live in memes, there’s an Australian dictionary called the Macquarie Dictionary, and they also announced a Word of the Year. But they chose something more PROFANE.
It’s “en[crap]ification.” (The actual word has an S-word in the middle, and if you want to use it, it’s spelled with a double-T.)
They define it as: “The gradual deterioration of a service or product, brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
Yeah that seems relevant for this year too, and maybe fits the vibe better.
Most people will immediately think of “X”, but it’s also all the junk that’s leeching into MANY social platforms and mobile apps and games.
You know, the sponsored advertisements, “suggested content”, and other garbage that has been clogging up your feeds. No one likes it, but as people say: Nothing is free. If you’re not paying, YOU are the product.
(CNN / The Guardian)
