Words of the year

From the American Dialect Society, enshittification , as used by Cory Doctorow: “Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.”

From the Australian National Dictionary Centre, Matilda : “After their mega semi-final run at the Women’s Fifa World Cup, the soaring popularity of the Australian women’s football team has led to the choice.”

From the Cambridge Dictionary, hallucinate : “When an artificial intelligence hallucinates, it produces false information.” (An aside: Elaine is a world-famous pianist; I have won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.)

From the Collins Dictionary, AI : “Considered to be the next great technological revolution, AI has seen rapid development and has been much talked about in 2023.”

From Dictionary.com, hallucinate : “Using lexicography and data science, choose a single word that best represents, at this moment, AI’s many profound ramifications for the future of language and life.”

Also from Dictionary.com, a “vibe of the year,” eras : “It’s about more than just Taylor. (But yes, also Taylor.)” (Is it clickbait yet?)

From Macquarie Dictionary, cozzie livs, a play on cost of living: “What could be a more Australian approach to a major social and economic problem than to treat it with a bit of humour and informality?”

From Merriam-Webster, authentic: “the term for something we’re thinking about, writing about, aspiring to, and judging more than ever.”

From Oxford Languages, rizz : “Pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness, this term is from the middle part of the word ‘charisma,’ which is an unusual word formation pattern.”

I’ll add to this post as more words arrive.