Every year, I like to take a look at the “Word of the Year” shortlists issued by various dictionaries and media outlets. The choices often reflect shifts (both real and perceived) in the societies they are drawn from. As usual, this year’s words range from smart to revealing to silly and downright annoying.
Let’s start with AI. It’s not really a word but rather an abbreviation for Artificial Intelligence and it’s certainly not new, having crept into everyday discourse over the past few years. However, its sudden ubiquity certainly reflects its enormous potential for technological and structural change in the workplace and society. It’s worth noting that only a few years ago, AI was the established abbreviation for “artificial insemination”, which is still often listed above “artificial intelligence” by dictionaries in their AI entries. We can surely expect the bots to rectify that soon.
According to Collins Dictionary, which has crowned AI “Word of the Year” (WOTY) 2023, the use of the term has "accelerated" with it becoming the dominant topic of conversation in 2023. As Collins Dictionary analyzed its data base of more than 20 billion words collected from websites, newspapers, magazines and books in addition to spoken material from radio and everyday life to establish its shortlist, it invites one to wonder whether AI may in fact have selected itself for top honors. If so, this could be yet another component of the "permacrisis," Collins’ WOTY for 2022, which is defined as "an extended period of instability and insecurity". AI should help to sustain that one.
In their WOTY efforts, the folks at Cambridge Dictionary also highlight the emergence of AI-related terms such as generative AI (GenAI), large language model (LLM) and GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer), which are often used and seldom understood. Many existing words were also put into the service of our new masters. Cambridge Dictionary has chosen “hallucinate” as its word of the year – no longer referring to the acid trips taken by the flower power generation, but rather in the sense that “when an artificial intelligence … hallucinates, it produces false information”. I personally find AI scary enough without having to imagine it on drugs.
American dictionary Merriam-Webster taps into our tenuous grip on online truth, while also turning its spotlight on the impact of GenAI and misleading social media assets on society, by choosing “authentic” as its word of the year and shortlisting “deepfake”. “Authentic” has seen its meaning expand over recent years to include remaining “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” Or should that rather be “true to one’s own brand”? In any case perceived authenticity has undoubtedly become one of the important currencies of online social life. With truth now being manipulated online for nefarious purposes, authentic has found its original meaning (real or actual) taking center stage once again.
After all this heavy traffic, Oxford University Press have opted for a word so light that it barely has any significance at all, other than highlighting the tendency for words to become truncated in the heat of texting and chatting. In the past, people had charisma. They also needed to type twice as many letters as the shortened form “rizz”, which is Oxford’s WOTY. I’m not sure whether this is a poor choice or a great choice to illustrate a sad state of affairs. Perhaps the latter, as “rizz” seems to be catching on with influencers and celebrities. And it rhymes beautifully with similarly frothy words like wiz, fizz and showbiz. According to the dictionary, rizz pertains to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness.
Oxford also shortlisted “parasocial”, describing the one-sided, unreciprocated sense of intimacy felt for a well-known figure by a fan or follower. In other words, the closeness to their idol felt by some “Swifties” – Taylor Swift fans – which also featured on OUP’s list.
Other shortlisted words included "nepo baby" (Collins), which has become a popular phrase to describe the children of celebrities who have gained unfair advantage due to their parents’ wealth or fame. "Greedflation," meaning companies making unfair profits during the cost-of-living crisis, and "ULEZ," the ultra-low emission zone that penalizes drivers of the most polluting cars in London, were also mentioned – each saying something about other aspects of our permacrisis.
Merriam-Webster also drew attention to the emergence of “deadname” - a term used by transgender supporters to refer to the name someone was given at birth and no longer uses after transitioning. The term often appeared in the media in connection with the culture war around legislation insisting on the use of birth names in official and other contexts.
As we enter this new year, I find myself wondering which of our permacrises will give rise to the next batch of WOTY candidates. Will new developments in AI spark journalists into new kinds of frenzy as yet unnamed? Will election campaigns find unheard of ways to undermine their opponents? Or will unprecedented acts of kindness and unimaginable creativity have us reading the words of the year and looking back with a smile on 2024.