0:00

Important holiday PSA. Do

0:02

not sleep on Old Navy's jingle jammies.

0:04

From iconic plaids to candy

0:06

cane Stamper, to Mary Elves.

0:09

Old baby has every festive pajama

0:11

print for the fam. At prices that would make

0:14

even Santa jealous. Wanna

0:16

match everyone in buffalo checks, even your

0:18

dog? Go for it. Sorry, not

0:20

sorry. But these PJs sell out fast.

0:22

So, pop buy an Old Navy store visit

0:24

old navy dot com.

0:27

You're finally at that hot new spot,

0:29

the one your friends keep raving about,

0:31

sitting across from your date. It's

0:33

going. Another round. Really

0:35

well. And that dish you've been dying to

0:37

try? Oh, it's headed your way.

0:40

You can smell it. Here it's sizzling

0:42

fresh off that skillet as it comes closer.

0:44

Closer and served. Go

0:47

ahead. Enjoy. After your phone

0:49

sneaks a bite first. When you're with Amex,

0:51

It's not if it's going to happen, but when?

0:53

American Express, don't live life without

0:56

it.

1:04

Grammer Girl here, I'm in Jan Fogarty, you

1:06

can think of me as your friendly guide to

1:08

the English language. We talk about writing,

1:10

history, rules, and other cool stuff.

1:13

And today, we are on other cool

1:15

stuff. Because I'm here with Stamper,

1:18

writer extraordinaire, Wordy expert,

1:21

used to work at Marion Webster, and

1:23

we are going to talk about words

1:25

of the year. Kory, welcome. Thank you

1:27

so much for being here. Thanks so much for

1:29

having me. You bet. Oh, and I forgot

1:31

to mention your book word by word.

1:34

The secrets of making the dictionary

1:36

something like that. The secret

1:38

life of dictionaries. But

1:40

yeah. I mean, close enough. Yeah.

1:42

It's all the same.

1:43

Fabulous book because you were one

1:45

of of people who write the dictionary. Right?

1:48

Yeah. I was. I am. I still

1:50

do. So Oh, you do? Oh, fabulous. I did

1:52

that. Wonderful. Well, we're looking forward

1:55

to your future books, but this one will have to hold us

1:57

over. And by the way, people, it would make

1:59

wonderful Christmas gift. I

2:01

agree heartily. So

2:06

words of the year. I

2:08

feel like this has become a

2:10

major PR event for

2:13

December. It sure

2:15

has do you it feels to me

2:17

like it's become bigger deal over the

2:19

years. Is that just my impression?

2:21

Or do you do you feel like that's true too? No.

2:24

I do think that that's true. I mean,

2:26

just so that we have just

2:28

for for disclosure

2:31

purposes, I will say that I have worked

2:33

for many dictionary companies. And

2:35

in some of those companies, I've been a part of

2:37

the word of the year. Team. So

2:40

just so everyone knows. But,

2:42

yeah, I do think that it's been it's been

2:44

more and more. It does seem like there's

2:47

a huge PR push. And I think,

2:49

you know, part of it is that the

2:51

words of the year when they first started

2:54

happening. People just

2:56

really loved them. They thought, oh, this is a

2:58

great little commentary on

3:00

how the year has gone and and everyone's

3:02

got a different angle on how the year's gone

3:04

because we're all very different people.

3:06

So it has has gotten

3:08

to be, I think, a bigger thing. There's

3:11

even sort of this this arms

3:13

race of who releases their

3:15

word first, and it's kind of like in

3:17

the US with the the primary

3:19

system here in our

3:20

elections. Like, who gets to have the first

3:23

caucus or primary? And it's

3:25

even doing that with the word of the year. So

3:27

It's yeah. It's a huge deal. Yeah.

3:30

Right. I I'm doing a bracket this year for

3:32

the first time, and I realized

3:34

I started far too late.

3:36

I should have started a month earlier.

3:38

We're gonna be done, you know,

3:40

the end of December, maybe early January by

3:42

the time of the voting comes

3:43

in, and, yeah, nobody's gonna care anymore.

3:46

Right. But

3:49

that's okay because as

3:51

the American dialect society,

3:53

which is a a big group of people who are

3:55

interested in the English language is

3:57

they like to say they have their word of their

3:59

vote in January because

4:02

they want whole year to finish

4:04

out. They want all of December to

4:06

take into calculus too. So you're not

4:08

that late. You're okay. That's true. Gonna

4:10

come in before the the American

4:13

dialect society

4:13

does. So I will. And actually, that

4:16

let's talk about the different ways the voting

4:18

happens because, you know, the dictionaries

4:21

do it very differently from the

4:23

American dialect society and actually differently

4:25

from how I'm doing it this

4:26

year. So Can you talk about the pros and

4:28

cons of the different ways of managing the

4:30

vote? Sure. So

4:33

just so everyone understands sort of

4:35

how the different ways of this works.

4:37

The American dialect society, basically,

4:40

at their meeting, they open

4:42

the floor and they say, okay, we

4:44

have a bunch of different categories. So Kory

4:46

instance, most likely to succeed

4:48

Kory most topical or

4:51

sort of word of the year

4:53

in politics, word of the year

4:56

globally. Have all these categories

4:58

and at the physical meeting, they

5:01

open the floor and you nominate your

5:03

words there and you give little spiel about

5:05

why your word should be added

5:07

to the nominations. And then they

5:09

vote on them live right there.

5:12

So that's that's how the American dialect society

5:14

does theirs. And

5:16

different dictionary companies have done

5:19

similar things online. So

5:21

there have been years where Miriam

5:24

Webster, for instance, had one year where

5:26

people could nominate and vote on the word

5:28

of the year. This year,

5:30

Oxford dictionaries did the same

5:32

thing. They had a they kind of took

5:34

a bunch of words and had people vote on

5:36

them. But then you're on the other end

5:38

of the spectrum, which is you have dictionary

5:41

companies looking at their

5:43

historical lookup logs. So

5:46

when you visit a dictionary website,

5:49

and you type in a word that

5:51

gets dinged in a little, you know,

5:54

little document somewhere else. And

5:56

at the end of the year, we can see every word

5:58

that's been looked up that year.

6:00

And sometimes you find that news

6:03

will drive lookups like,

6:05

mad. So you'll have news about something,

6:07

and then everyone's looking up

6:10

a piece of vocabulary from

6:12

that news story. And after

6:14

a while, we started noticing

6:16

that some of these patterns recur,

6:18

some of them are so significant that

6:20

they have a big spike and

6:23

then they have a lot of lookups through the rest

6:25

of the year they're overwhelmingly looked

6:27

up all the time. And

6:29

so most dictionary companies

6:31

commercial dictionary companies will sort of look

6:34

at those lookups, and they'll

6:36

saying, you know, we had a lot of these lookups,

6:39

so this might be our word of the year. And

6:41

sometimes, dictionary companies just sort look

6:43

at all of their new words and say,

6:45

you know, this is the word that we feel

6:47

like best encompasses the

6:50

zeitgeist. This is what how we feel

6:52

like the year has gone this

6:54

is the word that seems to be getting the

6:57

most traction, you know, among our

6:59

users seems to be a

7:01

thing that a lot of people resonate

7:03

with. So those are kind of different

7:06

methodologies of the word of the year, which

7:08

means that when we when we talk about the

7:10

word of the year, we're really talking about

7:12

the words of the year, and

7:14

and we're talking about a very

7:16

small number of words of the

7:18

year. Everyone's word of the year is gonna

7:20

be different. Yeah. It's been

7:23

fascinating to me to see

7:25

the different different winners. Do you

7:27

so do you have a favorite so far

7:29

of the we'll talk about all the

7:31

words. But do you have a a favorite of the

7:33

the collection that have come out so far? I

7:36

mean, they're all they're all so different.

7:39

I think one of the things I've noticed about the

7:41

ones that have come out so far is we

7:44

had a couple of years where it was all

7:46

sort of politically based words it

7:48

was lot of COVID

7:51

related words. And this year, we're

7:53

sort of moving out of COVID,

7:55

which is very interesting. Mhmm.

7:58

I actually I'm

8:00

gonna catch some flack for this. But I

8:02

kind of like goblin mode, which

8:04

is which is Oxford's

8:06

word of the year. So, goblin mode

8:08

is one of these words that got voted on

8:10

by people. They had a whole list of

8:13

of potential words. And

8:15

they said, vote on them,

8:17

and goblin mode made it. And

8:19

part of why I like goblin mode

8:22

is, well, maybe we should

8:24

fine goblin mode for people. Should we do

8:26

that first? Yeah. Well, yeah.

8:28

So goblin mode, in my mind,

8:30

if remember I'll just explain it

8:32

how I think of it off the top of the head now. This

8:35

isn't a formal definition, but it's

8:37

it's like when you are in your

8:39

house, And suddenly, you find that

8:41

you are surrounded by empty pizza boxes

8:43

and soda cans, and you haven't

8:46

changed out of your pajamas in three

8:48

days. And you look around and said,

8:50

oh, I guess I've really been in goblin mount

8:52

for a while. I

8:55

mean, it has couple of different shades of

8:57

meaning, so I I think that the Oxford

9:00

meaning is unapologetically

9:03

self indulgent, lazy, sloppily,

9:06

or greedy. So that's a pretty broad

9:08

range of -- Okay. -- potential things

9:10

to be. Part of why

9:12

I like goblin mode is,

9:15

hey, it's I do like these

9:17

that are chosen by the public, and there are

9:19

pros and cons to that, but I I like

9:21

the idea of saying, Look,

9:25

here's a whole list. Tell me what you

9:27

think is most trenchant. And

9:31

I liked it. I like Gopplenode

9:33

because it's word play. And

9:35

I feel like people love

9:39

sort of getting their myths into

9:41

the English language and just

9:44

like play doing it up.

9:46

And I think that that's one of the things about

9:48

kopplin mode that's It's little bit

9:50

refreshing after in previous

9:52

years, we've had words like democracy

9:55

or socialism or vacs

9:58

you know, COVID, you know, these very

10:01

heavy, big terms. And goblin

10:03

mode is the thing that, you know, Like

10:05

you said, that you say it immediately a

10:07

picture comes to mind. Whether that picture

10:09

is correct or not, like, it's you just sort

10:11

of know, like, oh, goblin mode. Yes.

10:13

I've been there. Yeah. So I like

10:16

it because it's just word play. And that's

10:18

and I think word

10:19

play is great. One one thing I saw a

10:21

lot about goblin mode is a lot of people hadn't

10:24

heard it. Before -- Right. -- that it was

10:26

completely new to them. And they're

10:28

saying, where did this come from? Had

10:31

had I think I had heard

10:33

it before, but I had never used it and I it wasn't

10:35

a common word in my mind. Had you had you

10:37

heard it before? Right. I had heard it,

10:39

but really, I kind of I had

10:41

heard it in, like, online slang

10:44

kind of thing. And

10:48

I always kind of relegated it to, like,

10:51

gaming, gamer stuff, which

10:53

I'm I'm not a gamer. So if

10:55

I'm wrong, send all of those angry

10:57

emails directly to me, not to grammar

10:59

girl, but

11:01

No. I think it was popular on Reddit

11:03

too. Yeah.

11:05

Yeah. So I I had

11:07

heard it But also, it's

11:09

my job to go hunting for words like

11:11

this. Of course, I'm probably more

11:13

familiar with it than other people might be.

11:17

But part yeah. I mean, I I think

11:20

it's funny that that you can

11:22

have a word that ends up being

11:24

the word of the year, that so few people have

11:26

heard but which resonates

11:28

with you, nonetheless, whether you whether you

11:30

like it or

11:31

not, like, people have had a

11:33

reaction. To goblin mode.

11:35

This is the word of the year. Yeah.

11:38

And I I think I started using it. It make

11:40

it it is a useful thing.

11:42

And I guess another thing to talk about, another bit

11:44

of feedback I've gotten is people said, well,

11:46

goblin mode is two

11:48

words. How can that be the word of the year?

11:50

I know that comes up every year with Yeah.

11:52

It does. Can you as a lexicographer, can

11:54

you explain? I am happy to

11:56

explain when we talk I mean, first word

11:58

of the year is just a lot catchier than,

12:01

you know, Lima or lexical

12:04

unit of the year. So when we

12:06

talk about words, what we

12:08

talk about when we or what we mean when

12:10

we talk about words as lexicographers is

12:13

we're talking about a unit

12:15

of meaning. That

12:17

carries a distinct semantic meaning.

12:20

So so you can say

12:22

Kory instance that climate

12:24

emergency, which I also think was

12:27

word of the year couple of years ago.

12:30

And no one threw their hands up about that

12:32

being two words because we understand that

12:34

climate emergency is is

12:36

itself describing a particular thing.

12:39

And and so we would say

12:41

that climate emergency is

12:43

a word for dictionary

12:46

purposes. I have to say

12:48

I mean, I've been lexicographer now

12:50

for Oh, boy. Almost

12:53

twenty five years and and

12:55

the a constant complaint

12:57

is that how can

12:59

you say it's word if it's more than one word?

13:02

A word just in dictionaries speak

13:04

just refers to something that has

13:06

a specific meaning. So goblin

13:09

has its own meaning, mode has its

13:11

own meaning. Goblin mode

13:13

has a different meaning than the combination of

13:15

those two meanings.

13:17

Perfect. Thank you. And, you know,

13:19

we're talking about the different processes for

13:21

coming up with words. It's interesting because goblin

13:23

mode why started my bracket with

13:25

sixty four words and goblin mode was eliminated

13:28

in the first round. But it won,

13:30

Oxford's, overwhelmingly, won

13:32

their vote. And about

13:34

COVID as well, we had seven

13:36

or eight words in the initial round.

13:39

We're down to the elite eight, And

13:41

the only one left is long COVID.

13:43

And most of them were eliminated in the first round

13:45

too. So people are not, like, glomming

13:47

onto the the COVID

13:49

birds. Like they do. Yeah.

13:51

I think it's interesting because when you

13:53

allow people to have sort

13:56

of end of year, you

13:58

know, look back, tell

14:01

us what the word of the year is, kind of

14:03

input. There is this interesting

14:07

so there's a thing that happens in film. It's called

14:09

a dolly zoom. Everyone has seen one

14:11

where the camera is

14:14

moving towards the I

14:16

might get this reverse. The camera's moving towards

14:19

a person as the shot pulls back.

14:21

So it's that thing where a person stands in one

14:23

spot and it seems like the walls

14:25

retreat from them. It's usually used

14:27

in horror, things like that. I feel

14:29

like when you do a word of

14:31

the year like this, you ask people reflect on

14:33

it, it's a dolly zoom. Right? They sit

14:35

in the middle and sort of everything fans

14:38

around them. But they're still

14:40

the focus. And so what's interesting

14:42

to me is people

14:45

are tired of talking about COVID,

14:47

so it doesn't if it's not surprising then,

14:49

that long COVID is the only one that

14:52

made it to the elite eight. People

14:54

are, you know, people

14:56

don't think goblin mode encompasses

14:59

their year. Because we want we want

15:02

our year to be something that's like meaningful.

15:05

Right? You know

15:08

You know what? It'd be like the word my

15:10

word of the year was, you know, I don't

15:12

even in, like, goblin mode. Like, I

15:14

was lazy and groggingly all

15:16

year long. We want we want our words

15:19

of the year to be these soaring soaring sentiments.

15:22

And and so, you

15:24

know, I I think that's

15:26

an interesting phenomenon when people when

15:28

you have to think about distilling

15:31

your entire, your experience

15:34

of the year, and your observations

15:37

of the world around you for the last year

15:39

and distill it down into one word.

15:42

I think people are most likely gonna

15:44

choose sort of a higher concept

15:47

bigger word than something that's

15:49

like, oh, goblin mode comes out of gaming

15:51

and I'm a Stamper. so I'm gonna say goblin

15:53

mode. Mhmm.

15:58

If you love the and other cool stuff,

16:01

part of this podcast, I think you'll love

16:03

another great show called Everything

16:05

Everywhere Daily. Everyday

16:08

host Kory Arnd investigates topics

16:10

like trial by combat, the

16:12

electromagnetic spectrum Kory

16:14

the rise and fall of department stores,

16:17

ensure it's easy to digest episodes. Listen

16:20

to everything, everywhere daily, wherever

16:22

you get your podcasts. Everyone

16:25

loves

16:25

buying holiday gifts, but the credit card

16:27

hangover not so much.

16:30

Well, Old Navy is out doing

16:32

even Santa with their prizes this

16:34

season. They have incredible prizes

16:36

for everyone on your list. Like matching

16:38

jingle jammies, statement making

16:40

coats, and the coziest sweaters.

16:43

And Old Navy has tons

16:45

of gifts for under fifteen bucks.

16:47

So you can buy yourself a little something

16:49

too. Kory, not sorry. So, pop

16:51

by store or visit old navy dot

16:54

com.

16:59

That's one thing I was gonna ask you about because

17:01

I noticed in in my groups of words,

17:03

there was two at least two different classes,

17:05

and they were the the higher, more

17:08

concept oriented words, like,

17:10

you said, like, democracy in the past, and

17:12

we had, you know, fatigue and

17:14

trauma and a lot of really

17:16

negative words people nominated, but we're

17:18

we're feeling oriented like

17:21

that. But then we need the very specific

17:23

words like supply chain or

17:26

-- Right. -- long COVID. And In

17:28

the past, have you, you know, you've been doing

17:30

this a lot longer and more focused. Is

17:33

there a trend like do people

17:36

usually want the the big

17:38

overarching feeling

17:39

word, or do they want the the thing,

17:42

like supply chain that describes the

17:44

year? I mean, it it kinda

17:46

goes either way, which I think is interesting.

17:49

So the thing about naming

17:51

a word that describes a thing like

17:53

supply chain, as

17:56

a word of the gear is that

17:59

this Kory of signals like

18:01

this is the overarching or

18:04

underlying reason

18:06

that our year has been this way. And

18:09

you can say that, you know, I

18:11

I think that's interesting because when you do that,

18:13

you'll automatically get people who say, that's

18:15

not how my year was. Right? Yes.

18:19

Yeah. Or that's a bad that's a bad

18:21

word. That's usually what you get like. That was

18:23

a terrible choice. And

18:26

I think the Kory of the big soaring words

18:28

when they get chosen Part

18:30

of what's interesting about that is that it reignites

18:33

conversation about what that word means. So

18:36

a word like fatigue or trauma,

18:38

especially those are those are words

18:40

that have a whole wide

18:42

variety of applications. And you're

18:44

gonna be so

18:46

if you were to, you know, trauma, let's

18:49

say, ended up winning the worst of the

18:51

year, which would that would be

18:53

a story in and of itself. But if it

18:55

did, that's the thing that, you know, it has all these

18:57

different occasions, has a very particular

19:00

application in psychology

19:02

and psychiatry, but it's a word

19:04

that's sort of seeped into the general

19:06

use in a way that that is

19:09

is both comforting to some people and

19:11

controversial to other people and

19:14

it provides a point of discussion.

19:16

Right? It's an inflection point for the for

19:19

you to reflect around your own

19:21

experience of the year. And

19:23

so I I think what's interesting

19:25

is sometimes if you have too many of one

19:27

and too and not enough of

19:29

the other, people long for the other

19:31

one. So do you do you

19:34

name there was a period of

19:36

time while I was at Miriam Webster where

19:38

you know, high concept big

19:41

words kept being sort of the top

19:43

of the charts. So you'd have,

19:45

you know, democracy was one one year.

19:49

Socialism was one.

19:52

And and these are, you know, these

19:54

are words that are that spawn very

19:56

interesting conversations, but But

19:58

there was also point where people were kinda like, oh,

20:01

I just like, can we just have a silly word

20:03

of the year? I mean, No.

20:06

People in house, but just you got a sense

20:08

from the way that people would respond to these.

20:10

Like, oh, come on. Like, this is how

20:12

many years can we take? These

20:15

big words. And then if

20:17

you have too many of of the particular

20:19

kinds of

20:20

words, people are like, well, that's not high concept.

20:22

Enough time for us to

20:24

talk about,

20:25

like, so all year. Yeah. Yeah.

20:29

Yeah. So it's it's an interesting

20:31

it's an interesting balance because I think

20:33

the word of the year, you

20:36

know, ultimately it is it is a

20:38

public relations thing. It's

20:40

it's a thing that we have

20:42

information that you might like to know

20:45

and we'll tell you some of it. But it's

20:47

it's not thing that

20:50

you should take as gospel truth

20:52

like we're not saying. This is the

20:54

way that everyone should think about this year.

20:56

And if you don't think about this year this way,

20:59

then you weren't part of whatever

21:02

group that we think that you

21:04

should be part of. And so

21:06

yeah. It's the word of the year is an

21:08

interesting thing just because it it's

21:11

it ends up getting so much more

21:15

weight than I think initially

21:18

they did. I think initially they were

21:20

you know, fun silly words, though.

21:22

Or or words that were tied to, like, a very

21:25

very specific news story

21:27

that made it easier to say. Wow. This

21:29

is why everyone looked this

21:30

up. Yeah. And speaking of the the sort of

21:32

PR value of the word, I wanna talk about dictionary

21:35

dot com's word of the year. Because they

21:37

chose woman. And

21:39

I have to say immediately when

21:41

I saw that they are such

21:44

Panderers. Oh

21:46

my gosh. It reminded me of when

21:49

Time Magazine, think it was, chose

21:51

you. As the person is here and put that

21:53

little mirror on the cover. I

21:55

do remember that. Yep. And then

21:57

but then, you know okay. So I read

21:59

their press release. And they talked about how

22:01

lookups were had spiked

22:03

for the word woman all year long, and they

22:05

have, like, a really good data driven reasons

22:07

that they chose the Kory. So -- Yeah.

22:10

-- like, when did you think when you first

22:12

saw a woman as the word of the year?

22:14

I have to say, I I was not

22:16

surprised by that. Yeah. In part

22:19

Yeah. In part because I

22:21

think that that the the spikes

22:23

that they were talking about, that's

22:25

also emblematic of how people use

22:27

dictionaries. Especially in online

22:30

spaces, you know. So, I

22:33

mean, your readers or

22:35

your listeners will probably be more aware

22:37

of this than many other people, but lots

22:40

of people have been debating the,

22:42

you know, any kind of gender sexuality related

22:45

arm online pretty heavily. And

22:47

and anytime there's a debate about the meaning

22:49

of a thing, the first thing you do is go

22:51

to a dictionary to support your whatever

22:54

your thought is about it. So

22:57

so that didn't surprise me because, you

22:59

know, there has been a lot

23:01

of particularly online

23:03

discourse where all these dictionaries now

23:06

live about gender

23:09

and sexuality in the last couple of years.

23:11

So I mean, I thought it was I

23:13

thought it was interesting, honestly, that

23:15

they said, well, this is big

23:18

look up, so we're just gonna choose it. Because

23:20

sometimes you That's a it's

23:22

a controversial It's a controversial

23:24

choice because I think it draws attention to

23:27

to the controversy happening online.

23:30

But I also, like, mad props for

23:32

just saying this this is the word of the

23:34

year. This is this is what our lookup

23:37

log show. So Definitely.

23:39

Yeah. I know they were really leaning into it. It was

23:41

so interesting. Yeah. And

23:43

then oh, you know, reminded me too

23:45

something you earlier about the difference

23:47

that I'm seeing between different groups.

23:50

So, you know, because I'm doing my brackets

23:52

all over social media. So I'm doing them on TikTok,

23:55

and LinkedIn, for Stamper. And

23:57

wow, are those results different? You

24:00

know? But yeah. You know,

24:03

the thirteen year old TikTokers Kory

24:06

however young they

24:06

are, don't really care much about inflation or

24:09

supply chain. You know,

24:11

whereas LinkedIn is much more interested

24:14

in the supply chain. Yeah.

24:16

Yeah. I mean, this is a thing that is

24:19

that I think is the story behind the

24:21

stories of the words of the year, which is,

24:23

who are the people that are looking these

24:25

words up? I mean, especially not

24:27

to be a bummer, but, you know, lots

24:29

of people just now

24:32

use a very famous search engine,

24:35

who I'm not gonna use their name, but they'll just

24:37

type in their search engine, define word,

24:40

and that search engine gives them sort

24:43

of some automated data.

24:45

So lots of people just don't visit

24:47

dictionary websites often for

24:50

particular word meanings. And That

24:53

means that's sad. Yeah. It is

24:55

it is super sad. Everyone, you know,

24:57

don't don't use the big search engine. Just go

24:59

straight to a dictionary website, please. But

25:01

They are better. But I think I think that

25:04

means then that the people

25:06

who are going to dictionary websites

25:08

are going to dictionary websites because

25:10

they want an authoritative dictionary

25:13

source. Right? And and

25:16

that's a that's a particular group

25:18

of people. And it's not the

25:20

broad spectrum Kory of people that used

25:22

to use print dictionaries thirty years

25:24

ago or forty years ago. It's

25:27

It's very different now. So

25:29

it's not surprising to me to hear that

25:31

your own, you know, listener base is

25:33

sort of, like, Well, the TikTok folks like

25:35

this and the LinkedIn people like this and the

25:37

people on Twitter like this and people have come

25:39

to my website like that because we

25:42

all sort of, you know, if I'm

25:44

going to LinkedIn, I'm in a business mindset.

25:47

And so I'm not probably going

25:49

to be, you know, I'm gonna be looking

25:51

at job posts or I'm gonna be updating

25:53

my resume or my CV or I'm,

25:56

you know, I'm networking. I'm

25:58

not gonna think Oh,

26:00

yeah. Long COVID is definitely the word

26:02

of the year. I'm already going to be thinking about

26:04

inflation, reception. I'm going to be

26:06

thinking about all of these financial business

26:09

type terms. If I'm on TikTok,

26:12

I'm gonna think inflation is not like that's

26:14

not what TikTok is for. TikTok

26:18

is so I can watch my favorite cheap

26:20

sharing channel. That's what TikTok is

26:22

for. And you're

26:24

primed to value different kinds of

26:26

words when you've encountered that environment.

26:29

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The where

26:31

we are in in sort of either

26:33

online space physical space or

26:36

or, you know, life space or whatever, that

26:38

all influences what we think of the

26:40

language, especially when you remove

26:42

language from its context. Right, when you're

26:45

just saying, okay, here's

26:47

two words. Right? Which

26:49

which word do you which word do you think is the word

26:51

of the year? And and that you're you're

26:53

given this sort of like make a very

26:55

quick decision kind of response. And

26:58

and if people if if you sort

27:00

of give it in long essay form,

27:03

explain, like, well, this is why I think this word

27:05

could be the word of the year, or this word could be the

27:07

word of the

27:07

year. You might get a different response.

27:10

So Right. And I mean, that's what happens at the

27:12

American dialect societies. People get to make

27:14

arguments for which where they think it

27:16

should be and you can see the vote being swayed

27:18

by people making a particularly good argument.

27:21

Yeah, absolutely. It's actually

27:23

so fascinating to just

27:26

watch the vote. Now I know that the

27:28

ADS is doing something slightly

27:30

different this year. I think they are gonna have an

27:32

online ballot in addition

27:34

to the in person nominations.

27:37

But but it is really fascinating

27:39

to watch, you know, to see sort

27:41

of everyone swing

27:44

from from, you know, we're gonna talk

27:46

you know, we're looking at at making,

27:49

I don't know, democracy, the word of

27:51

the year, and then someone stands up and and gives

27:53

an impassioned speech about pronouns.

27:55

And it's like, oh, now we maybe will make day

27:57

the word of the year. It's

28:00

really I mean, I love

28:02

it. I'm a big old nerd. I love watching

28:04

it because it just is so fascinating to

28:06

see. I do too. I think that's

28:08

one of the great things about the pandemic. The

28:11

one of the few great things is that the

28:13

you can now virtually

28:14

attend, and I never able to go

28:16

in prison before, so I've loved participating

28:19

in the last couple of years. Oh, yeah.

28:21

Oh, it's great. It's it's my it's

28:23

my favorite

28:24

TV. It's great. Yeah. And

28:27

now our mutual friend, Lynn

28:30

Murphy, who does the separated by a

28:32

common language vlog, So where

28:34

do the years abbreviated Wodie, WOTY,

28:37

and she refers to it as Wodie

28:39

McWolkface. There's

28:42

chose a craps me up. And

28:45

so the one of the

28:47

British dictionaries chose

28:49

Homer as the word of the year, which

28:51

was very

28:52

controversial. Can you talk about that?

28:55

I can. So that

28:57

would be Cambridge dictionaries, and

28:59

they chose Homer for

29:01

the word of the year. And the part of

29:03

the reason why is so Cambridge dictionaries

29:06

is most of the dictionary companies that

29:09

that your listeners are familiar with are gonna

29:11

be American based dictionary companies.

29:13

So Kory and Webster where

29:15

they do, you know, sort of

29:18

global or UK English. Cambridge

29:21

dictionaries, particularly, is

29:23

it's a dictionary four people

29:25

who are learning English as a foreign language.

29:28

And so that means that the kinds of people

29:30

that visit their site are different

29:33

from the folks who visit a place like

29:35

dictionary dot com or merriam Webster. And

29:38

and the reason that they chose Homer

29:40

was because of wordle,

29:42

which is a word game. If you

29:44

don't know, it's highly addictive,

29:47

where it's a it's five letters and

29:49

you have to choose your five letters

29:51

and to rearrange them in

29:53

a kind of like a little word

29:57

jumble kind of thing and And

29:59

Homer was AAA

30:02

solution for one of the days, and

30:05

that is not a word. Outside

30:07

of you. It's not a common word outside of

30:09

US English, and so far of why it

30:11

was made so many people angry.

30:14

Because if you're, you know, you're,

30:16

I don't know, in Nigeria, and you

30:19

don't know anything about baseball, and you

30:21

get this word that what?

30:23

What is horror? That is ridiculous.

30:27

So so the controversy

30:29

was, you know, you had all of these lookups

30:32

on this one day.

30:35

Commission changes every day for

30:38

Homer and and

30:40

it's just so it's an interesting that's an

30:42

interesting story too because it's because

30:44

sometimes the things that take

30:46

us to the dictionary are not these

30:48

hard hitting big,

30:51

you know, what is democracy? Who

30:54

gets to call themselves a woman? It's, you

30:56

know, I'm doing word all. I'm

30:58

doing a word game. And

31:00

I have never seen this solution

31:02

before. How very dare anything?

31:05

This is a a usable word.

31:08

So Cambridge dictionaries chose Homer because

31:10

it was their biggest look

31:11

up, and it wasn't entirely

31:14

because of a word game. So funny.

31:18

So I think the the last one

31:21

we should talk about is gaslighting.

31:24

This was

31:26

Marion Webster's word of the year. Is that right? Mhmm.

31:29

And it's girl count. You know, it's in my

31:31

group. It's made it to the final eight

31:33

of my group too, but when it was initially

31:35

nominated, I immediately thought that

31:37

would seem so old to me. Like, that was American

31:39

dialect societies one of their words

31:42

years ago. And I have heard

31:44

other people also say it seems kinda old.

31:46

But then when you look at, you know,

31:48

they again show their data and lookups

31:50

were way up for gaslighting. So

31:54

what are these perceptions where, you know,

31:56

obviously, it seems old to some

31:57

people, but brand new to others and was surging

31:59

this year when it feels passé

32:01

to me. Does that happen? I

32:04

mean, it that was interesting. That

32:07

was interesting not because of the word

32:09

that ended up being the word of the year,

32:11

but everyone's response to it,

32:13

which was I think the first time I've ever

32:15

seen this response, which was, oh, come on.

32:17

Like, we did this already, which

32:21

it's funny to me because it's not as though

32:23

words words go out of fashion,

32:25

you know, words or words

32:28

get used cyclically, words get used constantly,

32:30

words sometimes appear and are never used again,

32:32

that's just the nature of language. So

32:36

what was interesting to me about Gaslight

32:38

is it is a word that

32:41

that does feel old at least

32:44

it's it's peak, I would

32:46

say, feels old to me. Right?

32:48

I associate gas like much more

32:50

with twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,

32:53

not with, you know, twenty

32:56

twenty two. I just don't need it.

32:58

But but you know,

33:00

as as the folks at Miriam Webster showed,

33:03

like, there was a lookup spike and some

33:05

of that had to do with the actual

33:07

thing that gaslighting describes.

33:10

There's been sort of a a little

33:12

bit of controversy about, like, gaslighting

33:14

being used not with

33:16

its traditional sense, which is that you are

33:19

intentionally manipulating someone

33:21

to make them second guess themselves Kory

33:24

but gas lighting has sort of moved into,

33:26

like, you did thing I didn't like, and

33:28

so I'm gonna say it's gas lighting. And

33:30

so there's a little bit of controversy about

33:32

that. But the big one is that

33:34

Angela Landsbury died this year, and

33:36

she was in the movie gas light, which is

33:39

what gave us the word gas light So

33:41

there's a huge spike due around

33:43

her death, and and that just

33:45

goes to show that sometimes the connections

33:48

between word of the year And the

33:50

thing that you think is why

33:52

the word of the year should be the word of the year.

33:54

It's there's no connection. That's

33:56

not that's not the connection you're thinking

34:00

So but it is interesting. I think

34:02

I saw I think it was Rolling

34:04

Stone that hadn't had a

34:07

story about it, that the headline was something like

34:09

Miriam Webster is gaslighting us about the

34:11

word of the year. I think gaslight, which

34:13

that's a good headline. Yeah. It's pretty

34:15

good headline. Yeah, that was an interest.

34:17

That was an interesting response. I just I

34:20

was fascinated by

34:21

that. Yeah. And now that you mentioned it, I do remember

34:23

seeing in the comments on my votes.

34:25

People saying, well, a lot of people are using this wrong

34:28

now. Yeah. And it bugs

34:30

me. So Just

34:32

another reason why words of the year sometimes

34:35

end up as words of the year. You know?

34:37

Hey, if if it's a perennial

34:39

look up because people are arguing

34:41

about what it's meaning or uses, then

34:44

it might actually end up it might

34:46

end up in your voting bracket, higher in your

34:48

bracket than you would think. So

34:49

Yeah. That is fascinating. Well,

34:51

thank you so much for going through

34:54

all of this. And I think there's it's

34:56

just so fun to talk to you about words and

34:58

Now now I can't wait to see how everything shakes

35:01

out in the next few weeks with the words that

35:03

are still left to

35:03

come.

35:04

Oh, I know. It's exciting. It's exciting.

35:06

Yeah. Well, okay. So so let's tell people, again,

35:08

your book is a word by word --

35:11

The secret life of dictionaries.

35:13

Available where all find books are sold.

35:16

And where else can people find you?

35:19

People can find me online.

35:21

I Usually, I'm on Twitter or

35:23

Mastodon at Stamper, though

35:25

I'm taking a short break because I have another

35:27

book deadline. So But you

35:29

can also find me I have writing

35:32

by lines on the New York Times,

35:34

Washington Post, and you can read

35:36

some of my old writing at Kory dot

35:39

com,

35:39

which is my blog. Fabulous. Well,

35:41

thanks again. Thanks so much, Corey. Thanks

35:43

so much. Important

35:50

holiday PSA. Do not sleep

35:52

on Old Navy's jingle jammies. From

35:54

iconic plaids, to candy cane

35:56

stripes, to Mary Elves,

35:58

Old Navy has every festive pajama

36:01

print for the fam. At prices, that would make

36:03

even outside jealous. Wanna match

36:05

everyone in buffalo checks, even your dog?

36:08

Go for it. Sorry, not sorry. But

36:10

these PJs sell out fast. So pop

36:12

by an Old Navy store or visit old navy

36:14

dot com.

36:17

You made it here. Finally,

36:20

checked out of office to check into the

36:22

sweet views of that place you've

36:24

always wanted to

36:25

go. You know the one? It's

36:28

nice. Even the kids like it.

36:30

This place is so cool. And

36:32

they never like it. Mom, can

36:34

we go to the pool? Look at that.

36:36

Not even asking for the WiFi. When

36:38

you're with Amex, it's not if it's going

36:40

to happen, but when American

36:43

Express don't live life without it.