Our annual look at the most talked about words and expressions of this year

It’s that time of year again folks. The time when wordsmiths and language enthusiasts get very excited about fresh additions to our collective vocabulary and are allowed to talk about it!

Yep, it’s the ‘Word of the Year’ season, when dictionaries and lexical authorities announce which words have topped their lists of the most popular and relevant expressions of the past 12 months. Oxford Languages refers to these as words that have ‘great resonance’ for the year in question.

Let’s take a quick look at this year’s winners.

English words of 2024

Oxford Languages opted for ‘brain rot’, a term referring to the effect of endless online scrolling on our cognitive functions. Not a new word, references to brain rot date back to 1854 when it was used to describe what a writer felt was a general apathy towards ‘complex ideas’ at the time. Its more recent reincarnation, however, is very clearly about our difficulty unhooking ourselves from social media feeds and our endless consumption of banal online content.

Similarly, Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary chose ‘enshittification’, a word used to refer to the deterioration of a service, particularly online. TikTok trends influenced what Dictionary.com called the ‘meteoric rise’ of the word ‘demure’, its top choice for 2024, and ‘manifest’, a word whose usage initially also grew via social media, was Cambridge Dictionary’s selection. Even the popularity of the word ‘brat’ (chosen by the Collins Dictionary), can be linked to TikTok and the singer Charlie XCX’s video explainer of the word and what it represents.

A preoccupation with our relationship to technology has been a trend of this year’s choices and shows our ongoing readjustment to this rapidly changing part of our lives. Our language is now moulded significantly by what happens online, with words eventually getting filtered down, usually via younger generations, into mainstream parlance.

One prominent dictionary that moved away from the social media/technology theme was Merriam Webster which decided that ‘polarization’ most aptly summed up the events of the past few months. Hard to argue with in light of the recent election results in the US and political divisions elsewhere.

Words of the year in different languages

While we English speakers focus on our own dominant language, other nations and languages have also adopted the popular ‘WOTY’ trend.

 The Society for the German Language has been choosing its word of the year since 1971 and this year settled on ‘Ampel Aus’. This term refers to Germany’s recent political events, specifically the failure of the ‘traffic light’ government coalition.

The effect of global social media trends can be felt in the choice of the youth word of the year in Germany. ‘Aura’ was voted for by the 11-20 age group and describes someone who is cool and has gained ‘aura points’ through their positive actions.

In Japan, the kanji of the year has just been announced by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation in the annual ceremony at the Kiyomizu-Dera temple in Kyoto. ‘Gold’ or ‘money’ is the meaning of this year’s choice, selected by popular vote. It references Japan’s gold medal winners at the Summer Olympics, as well as 2024’s corruption scandal.

French-speaking nations have been slower to adopt the word naming event. The French global television network, TV5 Monde, has for the first time this year launched its own ‘WOTY’ competition and the results are yet to be announced. In Canada, the Quebec Office of the French Language chooses a list of 12 expressions annually, with ‘surtourisme’, ‘escalotage’ and ‘usurpation de voix’ standing out this year.

Linguists stay well-informed of changes in language

Making the shortlist for these ‘awards’ is significant and often a stepping stone for words to enter wider use and even inclusion in the dictionary.

‘Words of the year’ show us the factors shaping our language. Where once great writers like Shakespeare or Milton fashioned new English terms, social media influencers have to an extent, taken their place. Of course, language is ever-changing and words are constantly being created or borrowed or falling out of use, but the digital world is now an important source of inspiration. From the thousands of new words that appear each year, it is the lexicographer’s job – lexicographers are the people who edit and write dictionaries – to decide which words have gained sufficient presence to deserve an entry.

Staying up to date with language developments is equally essential for translators and interpreters. Depending on their specialised field, they must actively learn about new events and trends, the words that describe them and how these words are used. Linguists never stop being students of language. They must stay connected to how languages transform to do their job well.

When it comes to translating content for new markets and making sure it resonates with new cultures, understanding how language works and how it’s evolving is key. Localisation – the term used to describe the process of adapting content to a specific region – is, at its core, all about choosing the most suitable translations for any given context and using outdated words and expressions would be ineffective.

Although not usually perceived as such, translators and the language companies that employ them are experts in culture as well as language. They can offer invaluable advice to globally expanding organisations.

How do you say that?

An interesting aspect of the coinage of new words is pronunciation. Fortunately, the internet is now a fantastic place to learn how to say the latest words and expressions correctly (thank you Google), but that means that getting it wrong is perhaps less tolerated. There’s no longer an excuse for mispronouncing a public figure’s name, and there have been online campaigns where people share their name and how it’s said.

This year the list of the most mispronounced words of 2024 has received a considerable amount of attention. The list is varied, to say the least, and includes a clothing manufacturer, an Olympic mascot and several well-known people, notably Kamala Harris and Barry Keoghan.

Working with the spoken word means interpreters mustn’t get tripped up by these pronunciation challenges. Accurate pronunciation is part of the job description and one of their many talents. No doubt, interpreters are following the mispronunciation charts with interest.

Language connects us

Talking about the words that have made an impact or which words have been the most often mispronounced over the last year shows that the way we use language concerns and interests us all.  

‘Words of the year’ offer not only a snapshot of the mood of the last 12 months, they are also an indication of the direction our languages are taking.  And professional translators and interpreters always take note.

Although on the surface this might appear a frivolous topic, dig a little deeper and the significance of language to our lives is revealed. The words we use and the way we say them are something that touches us all and is most definitely worth talking about.