The following text is reprinted with the user’s permission 
The conversationan online publication featuring the latest research.
since American Dialect Society In its 1990 Word of the Year speech, more than half a dozen English dictionaries have anointed a word or phrase of the year that seeks to encapsulate the zeitgeist of the previous year.
In 2003, the publisher of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary began to give the crown. On December 9, 2024, it selected “polarization” as its word of the year, joining a list of 2024 winners from other dictionaries including “brat,” “manifest,” “demure,” “brain rot,” and “enshittification.” “.
About supporting science journalism
If you like this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism subscribe. By purchasing a subscription, you’re helping to ensure a future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape our world.
Award winning terms are selected in a number of ways. For example, this year Oxford dictionary editors can let the public vote for their favorite a short list of candidates. Brain rot triumphed.
Other publishers rely on the common sense of their editors, augmented by measures of popularity such as the number of online searches for a given term.
Given great decline in the sale of printed reference works, these annual advertisements increase the visibility of the publisher’s merchandise. But their choice also offers a window into the spirit of the times.
As a learning cognitive scientist language and communicationI saw, in this year’s line-up of winners, the myriad ways digital life is affecting the English language and culture.
Hits and misses
This is not the only year where almost all the winners have been included under one thematic umbrella. In 2020, terminology related to the epidemic – covid, confinement, the pandemic and the quarantine– he went up.
Usually, however, there is more of a mix, with some selections being more pioneering and useful than others. In 2005, for example, the New Oxford American Dictionary “the podcast” – before the programming format exploded in popularity.
For the most part, famous neologisms don’t age well.
In 2008, he selected the New Oxford American Dictionary hypermillingor driving to maximize fuel efficiency. Permacrisis– A constant emergency – got the nod from the editors of the Collins Dictionary in 2022.
Neither term will see much use in 2024.
Appearance of brain rot
I already predict that one of this year’s selections – “brat” – will fall by the wayside.
Ahead of the 2024 US election, Collins Dictionary he chose brat as the word of the year. The publisher defined it as a “confident, independent and hedonistic attitude”.
Not coincidentally, it was also the name of a chart-topping album released by Charli XCX in June 2024. At the end of July, tweeted the singer“kamala IS brat,” expressing support for the Democratic presidential candidate.
Of course, with the loss of Harris, the brat has lost some of its luster.
Other 2024 words of the year also have social media to thank for their popularity.
At the end of November, Cambridge Dictionary established in the manifesto because of the word of the year, it defines it as: “using methods like visualization and affirmation to help you imagine getting something you want.”
The term took hold when he became a singer Dua Lipa He used it in an interview. But he seems to have caught on to the concept Self-help communities on TikTok.
Another word that has clearly benefited from social media was “neat”, was chosen by Dictionary.com at the end of November. Although the word dates back to the 15th century, it became viral a TikTok Video posted by Jools Lebron in early August. In it, he described appropriate workplace behavior as “very weak, very responsible”.
The Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English established that:enshitification” as his word in early December. Created by Canadian-British writer Cory Doctorow in 2022refers to the gradual reduction of the functionality or availability of a particular platform or service. google, TikTok, X and dating app users can verify.
Oxford dictionary selection for 2024 – “brain rot” — covers the shocking effects of social media overuse.
The dictionary defined its word of the year as “a suspected impairment of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially as a result of overconsumption of material considered trivial or unchallenging (particularly online content these days).”
Brain rot, however, is not a new concept. In the concluding section “Walden“, Henry David Thoreau complained that “brain rot” had prevailed “wide and deadly“.
Get out the digital knives
Merriam-Webster made “polarization” the Word of the Year. dictionary defined the term “like the division of two opposites into two; above all, the opinions, beliefs or interests of a group or society do not go in a continuum, but are concentrated in opposite ends”.
In the US, political polarization has several causes, including: gerrymandering to in-group biases.
But social media certainly plays a big role. 2021 revision Brookings Institution He noted “the relationship between technological platforms and the kind of extreme polarization that can lead to the erosion of democratic values and partisan violence.” And the journalist Max Fisher has given in which way Algorithms deployed by these social media platforms “drive users towards anger” – that observation experimental studies they have supported the phenomenon.
Despite the polarization of political and social life, dictionaries have at least reached a consensus: The technological giants are shaping our lives and our language, for better or for worse.
This article was originally published The conversation. read it original article.
