This year’s shortlist, reflecting some of the “moods and conversations that have shaped 2024”, has been compiled by OUP’s experts following an analysis of its 25-billion-word body of language data.
The Merriam-Webster word of the year for 2023 is in response to all the nonsense and noise of the current age of post-truth, fake news, deepfakes and artificial intelligence.
Oxford English Dictionaries’ word of the year couldn’t be further from Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.
Merriam-Webster’s word of the year was introduced to the world in a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton, but has been thrown into the spotlight once again.
There are some words that happen to capture the attention of a nation and depending on their popularity, the world.
Like many, I cannot wait to see the back of this year, for reasons nicely summed up by 2020’s South African Word of the Year.
Though Miley Cyrus may hold sway over the lives and opinions of young men and women, it’s nice to see that her power has not yet extended to the good people who edit the Oxford Dictionary.