Around this time every year, most of the dictionaries and a few other sources choose their \u201cword of the year.\u201d It\u2019a always interesting to see what they think should be the word of the year. Some years it\u2019s driven by circumstances, like the pandemic, sometimes it\u2019s due to some new technology or discovery and sometimes it isn\u2019t even a word \u2014 a few years ago, it wasn\u2019t a word, it was an emoji.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyhow, as I said, there turns out to be lots of words of the year, depending who chooses them.\u00a0
I decided this year to just focus on two pretty well-known sources \u2014 the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Cambridge Dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Merriam-Webster chose \u201cauthentic\u201d as their word of the year. This one kind of puzzles me \u2014 it seems to me that nothing much is authentic any more. You certainly can\u2019t believed most anything on social media is authentic, turns out that much of the news<\/em> isn\u2019t authentic, either. You have to be careful buying car parts (or airplane parts) because there\u2019s a real possibility they\u2019re not authentic. And of course with the explosion of Artificial Intelligence, it\u2019s getting harder and harder to determine what is<\/em> authentic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cambridge Dictionary came up with \u201challucinate\u201d as their choice for word of the year. I guess I think this one might make a little more sense. As the campaign for president is gearing up, most of the talk I hear doesn\u2019t make any logical sense \u2014 maybe some or most of these people really are hallucinating. Again, AI, or more particularly generative AI, may have played a part in their selection. So if it\u2019s generative AI or the political climate, they both seem to stray from reality and truth\u2026.hallucinating may be a good term.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as I finished writing this, I thought I probably should check to see what the Oxford Dictionary picked this year, after all it\u2019s pick usually get the most press. The Oxford word of the year for 2023 is \u201crizz.\u201d I have to be honest \u2014 I\u2019ve never heard that word before and have no idea what it means. According to the Oxford University Press, it is derived from the word \u201ccharisma\u201d and it refers to a person\u2019t ability to attract a romantic partner through \u201cstyle, charm or attractiveness.\u201d The Oxford folks added that the word can also be used as a verb, in the phrase \u201crizz up,\u201d meaning to attract or chat up a person.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So three different sources came up with three pretty different words for this year. With a little imagination I could see why two of them might have been chosen. The third one baffles me. Apparently I have absolutely no rizz at all\u2026. Around this time every year, most of the dictionaries and a few other sources choose their \u201cword of the year.\u201d It\u2019a always interesting to see what they think should be the word of the year. Some years it\u2019s driven by … Continue reading
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