Words don’t stop coming and dictionaries continue to add hundreds of newfangled words to their pages and online databases every year!
Significantly, these words remind us that we are navigating a rapidly changing world, where technology is shaping our reality and individuality! At the same time, words tell us that they are powerful indicators of our societal values, concerns and aspirations.
Although there are many theories and arguments, language experts claim that English, which incorporates the vocabulary from languages, has more words than other languages, despite the fact that it is nearly impossible to verify.
According to the International Centre for Language Studies in Washington, about 1.52 billion people worldwide speak English. Although it has the most speakers globally, only 25 per cent of them are native speakers, while the rest learned it as a second language. It also dominates online media, with over half of all websites using it for their content.
At the end of every year, a word is selected to represent the year gone by and it becomes the Word of the Year. “This never-ending work is the job of our lexicographers, the people who write and edit the dictionary. They do more than just add and define words. As culture changes, society innovates and trends come and go, our language changes right along with it,” reveals Dictionary.com.
So, who is creating these new words, and why? How do they catch on? And what happens to older forms of expression when so many new words gain usage?
In English language and literature, it’s almost impossible to have a conversation without using words and phrases contributed by William Shakespeare, John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer, Ben Jonson, John Donne and Sir Thomas Moore.
It should come as no great surprise that writers are behind many of our lexical innovations. However, the fact is, we have no idea whom to credit for most of our lexicon.
Lexicographers track a vast number of terms and topics, read a wide variety of writing and transcribed speech and use large, searchable collections of texts to see how terms are actually being used.
“Every year, our lexicographers analyse the English language to summarise words and expression that have reflected our world during the last 12 months,” points out Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages in its website.
Editors of the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, to be completed by 2037, expect about 4,000 per year to enter the dictionary every year. A large percentage of new words are portmanteau words, also called blended words — a word that combines the meaning of two discrete words.
Consider terms and phrases like "hashtag" for adding a hash sign to a word, topic, or message, or "doomscroll," a term for spending excessive time online scrolling, or "selfie" for a photograph taken by oneself, which were unimaginable a few decades ago and have now become part of our everyday language.
For 2024, Oxford University Press announced 'brain rot' as its Word of the Year after a two-week public vote, with over 37,000 participants casting their ballots. While 'brain rot' defines “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state”, its first recorded use dates back to Henry David Thoreau's 1854 work, Walden.
Interestingly, the Cambridge Dictionary chose 'manifest' as its Word of the Year after it became one of the most searched terms of 2024, with nearly 130,000 lookups on its website.
Traditionally meaning "to show or demonstrate clearly," "manifest" has evolved to encompass a more proactive interpretation in the context of personal development and goal-setting. The word is now seen as an action of visualisation to help you achieve something that you want.
For Collins Dictionary 'brat' is its Word of the Year "characterised by a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude." However, ‘brat' now represents different things to different people: from a bold attitude and flashy style to even political slogans. The word’s popularity took off thanks to Charli XCX's album.
Merriam-Webster, meanwhile, selected ‘polarisation’ as its Word of the Year with both scientific and metaphorical definitions of causing strong disagreement between opposing groups. The word’s foundation lies in the Latin polaris, meaning “of or relating to the poles,” a nod to the Earth’s geographical poles.
Dictionary.com selected 'demure' as its Word of the Year, a term traditionally meaning modest or reserved. Demure is used to describe a sophisticated, refined appearance or behaviour, often in professional or public settings, like at work or on a plane.
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