It seems to come earlier every year: publishers and dictionaries choosing their “word of the year”. Initially intended to sum up a meaningful trend or feeling that represents the past year, the exercise is now becoming a competition to identify and highlight fashionable slang. Collins went with brat, the Charli XCX album phenomenon as applied to […] … learn more→

Ever since the American Dialect Society selected a Word of the Year at its conference in 1990, over half a dozen English dictionaries have anointed an annual word or phrase that’s meant to encapsulate the zeitgeist of the prior year. In 2003, the publisher of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary began bestowing a crown. On Dec. 9, 2024, it selected […] … learn more→