From the Cambridge Dictionary , parasocial : “The term dates back to 1956, when University of Chicago sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl observed television viewers engaged in ‘para-social’ relationships with on-screen personalities, resembling those they formed with ‘real’ family and friends.”
From the Collins Dictionary , vibe coding : “The term was popularised by Andrej Karpathy, former Director of AI at Tesla and founding engineer at OpenAI, to describe how AI enables creative output while he could ‘forget that the code even exists.’”
”From Dictionary.com, 67 : “Perhaps the most defining feature of 67 is that it’s impossible to define. It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical.”
[I’d style it as 6–7. The explanation our household has from an eight-year-old informant leans to “this or that.” Elaine remembered later today that she’s written a piece for practicing the sixth and seventh positions on the violin: “At Sixes and Sevens.”]
From Macquarie Dictionary, AI slop : “low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user.”
From Merriam-Webster, slop : “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
From Oxford Languages, rage bait : “With 2025’s news cycle dominated by social unrest, debates about the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing, our experts noticed that the use of rage bait this year has evolved to signal a deeper shift in how we talk about attention — both how it is given and how it is sought after — engagement, and ethics online.”
My suggestion for 2025, which I chose when only 6–7 had been announced: slop.
I’ll add to this post as more words arrive.
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Words of the year
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comments: 3
cf. old English idiom “at sixes and sevens”?
That’s what Elaine wondered about, and then she remembered that she’s written a piece for practicing the sixth and seventh positions on the violin, “At Sixes and Sevens.” I’m adding a link.
The Skrilla lyrics say “6-7, I just bipped right on the highway,” which made me wonder if it’s a police code. The code “10-67” apparently means a person calling for help or a report of a death.
Aha: someone has glossed the words at genius.com: “6-7 refers to the police code 10-67, which signifies that a death has occured. It also alludes to 67th Street in Philadelphia, which Skrilla represents, and 6-7 may also be a shorthand for death via a reference to burial plots – six feet under and seven feet apart.” Yikes. Don’t explain it to little kids.
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