Show notes for Episode 68

Here are the show notes for Episode 68, in which Lisa, Jacky, Raj and Dan talk to lexicographer extraordinaire, connoisseur of coinages and expert slangster, Tony Thorne,Language consultant at King’s College London, about the words of 2024, those on his radar for 2025 and what new words tell us (or don’t) about the world we live in today.  

We talk about:

• The WOTY lists of 2024

• Why WOTY generates interest and column inches

• What didn’t make the cut

• What’s driving lexical change

• Why new words aren’t all about fun and frivolity

• What the words that are bubbling under for 2025 tell us about the year that could be to come

As part of the discussion, we touch on some explicit language and themes of an adult and politically controversial nature. 

Tony’s website:https://language-and-innovation.com/ 

Tony’s 2024 piece for The Conversation:https://theconversation.com/most-words-of-the-year-dont-actually-tell-us-about-the-state-of-the-world-heres-what-id-pick-instead-246190 

And Tony’s 2023 piece:https://theconversation.com/im-an-expert-in-slang-here-are-my-picks-for-word-of-the-year-218286 

We talk about words featured in some of the following articles: 

Collins WOTY brat:https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty 

Brat, delulu and raw-dogging make Collins dictionary 2024 - can you decode this Gen Z slang? - Mirror Online

Charli XCX's Brat crowned Collins Dictionary word of the year - BBC News

Telegraph on brat:http://archive.today/2024.11.01-074903/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/01/brat-collins-dictionary-charli-xcx-eras/   

The Times on brat:http://archive.today/2024.11.01-004723/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/collins-word-of-the-year-brat-20m337nhc 

Celebrities make ‘manifest’ appear as 2024 word of the year | Social media | The Guardian 

2024 Word of the Year Is “Rawdog” - American Dialect Society 

How did ‘rawdogging’ become part of polite conversation? | Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian 

Dictionary Dot Com WOTYdemure:https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-year-2024/   

Macquarie WOTYenshittification:https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/nov/26/enshittification-macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-explained 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/arts/brain-rot-oxford-word.html (alternative link:http://archive.today/2024.12.03-205352/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/arts/brain-rot-oxford-word.html )

OUP on Oxford WOTY:https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/ 

‘Brain rot’: Oxford word of the year 2024 reflects ‘trivial’ use of social media

Dan’s for Byline Times:https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/brain-rot-what-the-oxford-word-of (alt link:http://archive.today/2024.12.06-210125/https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/brain-rot-what-the-oxford-word-of )

Dan’s piece for Byline Times piece on ‘enshittification’:The Words That Define Our 'Enshittified' World alt link:http://archive.today/2024.11.16-094738/https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-words-that-define-our-enshittifed 

2024 Word of the Year | School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics 

‘Government by the worst’: why people are calling Trump’s new sidekicks a ‘kakistocracy’ | Trump administration | The Guardian 

Words of the year: maybe I’m delulu, but these don’t seem like words people actually use | Crosswords | The Guardian 

Nancy Friedman:https://bsky.app/profile/fritinancy.bsky.social 

Lexis is on Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social 

Contributors

Lisa Casey 

blog:https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter:Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

Dan Clayton 

blog:EngLangBlog & Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social 

Jacky Glancey 

Twitter:https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

Raj Rana & Matthew Butler 

Twitter:https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA 

Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys 

Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive:https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys