Rage bait, goblin mode … do words of the year have any real value? | Language

If you’ve seen a news story in recent weeks announcing 2025 as the “word of the year”, you could be forgiven for asking yourself: what, another one?

Depending on which dictionary you consult, the term chosen this year was either “feeling coding” from Collins, “parasocial” from Cambridge Dictionaries, or “anger trap” from rivals Oxford University Press – and many more options.

Since its origin 35 years ago, American Dialect Society Struggling to find a word that could sum up the past 12 months, this particular Americanism crossed the Atlantic in the mid-2000s and has since established itself as the closest thing to an awards season the English language has.

“There are dozens now,” said Jonathon Green, a writer and lexicographer who specializes in the evolution of slang. “It seems to me that if you have any interest in publishing a reference book, or certainly some kind of dictionary, you have an obligation to come up with one of these.”

Other linguists suggest that the final choices were driven by the need to attract public attention rather than any deep linguistic analysis.

Robbie Love, a sociolinguist based at Aston University, said the lexicographers behind the selections themselves believe it is not a “purely objective, scientific process”, otherwise “your” [would] Find the same words… they will all make them different”.

Vaclav Brezina, professor of linguistics at Lancaster University, said: “The assessments of word of the year are quite narrow, so this is a word that captures the imagination of people and lexicographers in that year.

“I don’t think the purpose of the word of the year is actually to give a scientific analysis of the English language… [it] “To get more of our attention.”

Much of this imagination is increasingly taking shape online, based on data analysis carried out by the Guardian, which has measured the frequency of use of words of the year chosen by Cambridge, Collins and Oxford since 2010. More than a third of the selected words are either internet slang terms or owe their meanings to technological devices. This figure increases to two-thirds for words of the year from 2021.

Lynne Murphy, professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex, is not surprised. “I think it’s inevitable in a way because words spread really easily these days. So everyone is much more aware of new words. There’s also the fact that we’re in a period where technological change is really active.”

However, due to the ephemeral nature of most online content, it is perhaps to be expected that many pre-selected words will not stand the test of time. Oxford’s choice for 2022, “goblin mode” – “a type of unapologetically self-indulgent behavior that rejects social norms or expectations” – may ring a bell but is now rarely used. Cambridge’s 2018 selection “nomophobia” (fear of being without a phone) is similarly ambiguous. According to analysis of the News on the Web corpus, the use of NFT or non-fungible token (Collins, 2021) and “youthquake” (Oxford, 2017) has also decreased significantly by 96% and 92% respectively.

Some have become unpopular for good reasons. Words like Brexit, vax and quarantine referred to a particular period in social history whose urgency may have diminished even as its effects continued to be felt. Others, including austerity and the climate emergency, have strengthened and weakened in line with political developments and changing priorities; But it’s hard to imagine David Cameron’s “big society” ever making a comeback.

Jonathan Dent, a senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, said of the lack of longevity: “Whether a word of the year survives in the long term as an active and widely recognized part of the language is really less important.” [than] It has something to say about where we are now this year.

“If a word of the year candidate maintains the type of usage that led to its selection, this is a sign that English speakers and writers find it a useful addition to their linguistic toolkit. If it does not, that does not mean that it was not a relevant and valuable choice in the year in which it was selected.”

While some linguists like Murphy may be “somewhat skeptical that some of the dictionary words of the year are noteworthy” and view the annual ritual as “a marketing tool”, others are less skeptical of the practice.

Love said: “I will not comment in any way [word of the year] as a prediction, one way or another, of how this word might be used in the future.

“I think it’s a fun way to get people talking about language, and especially if they’re choosing words that are more likely to be used by young people fairly consistently in online discourse, then it’s a great way to engage young people in these kinds of conversations about language and words.”

In summary: Expect no word of the year to last longer.

“This is marketing,” Green said. “Does it work? Well, that’s the other side of it… [but] “Is this really something that the public thinks ‘that sums up the year I just had’?”