Merriam-Webster's 2024 Word of the Year: Polarization

Summary

All Of It: Episode Summary – Merriam-Webster's 2024 Word of the Year: Polarization

Hosted by Alison Stewart on WNYC, this episode of "All Of It" delves into Merriam-Webster's selection of "polarization" as the 2024 Word of the Year. Through an engaging conversation with Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, the show explores the significance of this choice, the process behind it, and its reflection of the current cultural and political climate.

---

Introduction to the Episode

Alison Stewart kicks off the episode by outlining the day's topics, including tributes to the poet Nikita, discussions on Texas's abortion laws, the racial disparities in psychosis rates, and a live performance by musician Ravi Coltrane. However, the primary focus quickly shifts to Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year.

Merriam-Webster's 2024 Word of the Year: Polarization

Selection Process and Definition

At [00:04], Alison introduces the topic of the Word of the Year, highlighting significant events from 2024 that contributed to the choice, such as dramatic political rivalries and societal divisions. She then engages Peter Sokolowski to explain why "polarization" was selected.

Historical Context

At [01:55], Peter Sokolowski provides a historical overview, noting that "polarization" originated in the early 1800s as a scientific term related to light and electricity. He explains, “Polarization is a division into two sharply distinct, especially a state in which the opinions, beliefs or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum, but become concentrated at opposing extremes” ([03:10]).

Public Engagement and Data-Driven Choice

Peter emphasizes Merriam-Webster's data-driven approach, stating, “We let the public tell us the dictionary what the year was about” ([03:55]). By analyzing which words saw a significant increase in searches, Merriam-Webster identifies "polarization" as a term that captured the collective consciousness throughout the year, rather than being tied to a single event.

Importance of Dictionary Neutrality

At [05:51], Peter underscores the importance of the dictionary's neutrality: “The dictionary has to define words for everyone and for all sides” ([05:51]). This impartial stance ensures that the dictionary remains a trusted resource for understanding the evolving language.

Runner-Up Words and Listener Interactions

Demure and Its Viral Surge

At [08:51], Alison discusses "demure," a word that saw a spike in searches due to a viral video. Peter explains, “Demure was the word that sent people to the dictionary” ([09:10]), highlighting how viral trends can influence word popularity.

Other Notable Mentions:

• Unsustainable: A listener suggested "unsustainable" to describe the American political system.
• Weird: Another listener pointed out the versatile usage of "weird," prompting Peter to discuss its semantic expansion ([13:44]).
• Perimenopause: Highlighting the normalization of medical terminology in mainstream discourse ([10:27]).

Comparing with Other Dictionaries

Alison brings up Oxford English Dictionary's choice of "brain rot" and Collins Dictionary's "brat." Peter responds by explaining the different methodologies:

• Oxford: Analyzes published writing frequency.
• Collins: Often highlights culturally significant or viral terms.

He states, “We try to keep to the data, to tell the truth about words” ([18:56]), reinforcing Merriam-Webster's commitment to public usage.

Listener Suggestions and Linguistic Trends

Listeners contributed words like "vibe" and "100%," reflecting contemporary language trends. Peter discusses how words evolve and adapt to new contexts, emphasizing that Merriam-Webster continuously monitors such changes to update definitions accordingly ([25:14]).

Language Evolution and Dictionary Updates

Adding New Words and Subgenres

Peter elaborates on how Merriam-Webster identifies when a new word or compound term has reached "critical mass" for inclusion: “If the word is used frequently, then it goes into the dictionary” ([20:02]). Examples include "beach read," "true crime," and "dungeon crawler," which have been lexicalized to convey specific meanings within broader cultural contexts.

Semantic Bleaching and Word Usage

Discussing the phenomenon of semantic bleaching, Peter explains how words like "literally" lose their original meaning to serve as intensifiers, a natural progression in language evolution ([07:06]).

The Role of the Dictionary as a Public Resource

Peter concludes by reflecting on the dictionary's role in society: “It really validates all of the serious work that we do to revise and maintain the dictionary” ([27:13]). He emphasizes that the dictionary serves as a universal tool, bridging diverse perspectives and facilitating effective communication.

Conclusion

Alison wraps up the segment by reiterating the significance of "polarization" as the Word of the Year, capturing the essence of a divided society. She thanks Peter Sokolowski for his insights and encourages listeners to continue engaging with the evolving language.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Peter Sokolowski on Polarization’s Definition: “Division into two sharply distinct, especially a state in which the opinions, beliefs or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum, but become concentrated at opposing extremes.” ([03:10])
• On Dictionary Neutrality: “The dictionary has to define words for everyone and for all sides.” ([05:51])
• On Public Choice of Words: “We let the public tell us the dictionary what the year was about.” ([03:55])
• On Semantic Bleaching: “Semantic bleaching simply means that if I tell you I literally died laughing, then literally no longer carries meaning.” ([07:06])

Takeaway: This episode of "All Of It" provides a comprehensive look into how Merriam-Webster selects its Word of the Year, illustrating the interplay between language, culture, and societal trends. Through thoughtful dialogue and listener interactions, the show highlights the dynamic nature of language and the dictionary's pivotal role in capturing and defining this evolution.

Transcript

[WNYC Studios]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, we'll remember the great poet and orator Nikita. John and Bonnie will also talk to the directors of a new documentary which takes a look at the consequences of Texas's near total abortion ban. We'll also talk about the racial gap in rates of psychosis with a New York Times reporter and a psychologist he talks to in the piece. Plus, we will hear a live performance from musician Ravi Coltrane. That is the plan. So let's get this started with the word of the year. What word captures 2024, a year that began with a door flying off an Alaskan Airlines Boeing 787 Max in midair. 2024 gave us some historic matchups and beefs, including Drake and Kendrick, Wicked and Gladiator, Trump and Biden, then Trump and Harris. In a few different ways, it feels like 2024 was urging us to pick a side. So this year's Merriam Webster's word of the year is polarized. We've talked a little bit about that word and some words that have been newly added to the dictionary this year, including freestyle jam, ban street corn, nepo baby, late capitalism and badassery. Joining us now is Peter Sokolowski, Merriam Webster's editor at large. He'll tell us how they chose the word of the year and what it tells us about the moment we are living in. Peter, welcome back to all of it.

[Peter Sokolowski]

It's great to be back with you. I'm glad you're well.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you so much for asking. It was interesting because the press release notes that the word polarization dates back to the 1800s. What do they mean? What do they mean then?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, originally it was a scientific word, like many words in English that came from Latin. But most of those words really came in the 1500s or the 1600s. What we call the Renaissance was this sort of invasion of Latin terms for science. And when you think of people like Isaac Newton or even Descartes, they were writing in Latin. So that's the basis of our scientific and, as you know, our medical language to this day. But this is a little bit later. The word polarize, polarization comes in the early 1800s, and that's a little bit later than most of the scientific vocabulary. And that's really because there was, you know, the new science of examining light of course, they did not know. And we still sort of debate whether light is a, you know, a wave or a particle. But also the idea of electricity as you know, was very, very much in its infancy at that time. And poles or polarizing are essential terms for both fields of science.

[Alison Stewart]

Well, what is me Merriam Webster's definition of polarization, 2024?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, so we define polarization as division into two sharply distinct, especially a state in which the opinions, beliefs or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum, but become concentrated at opposing extremes. So that's obviously a little bit of a metaphor for the literal distance or the literal marker of, for example, the south and the North Pole, which are things that talk about separation.

[Listener]

Why is polarization a good choice for word of the year among all the other words that could be used to describe the state of our politics?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, what's nice about the way we do it is that rather than us telling you the public what the year was about, we let the public tell us the dictionary what the year was about. And so what we do is we look at our data. We look at which words sent people to the dictionary the most often. And we have 100 million page views per month at marianwebster.com@our dictionary. And so what we tend to do is look at which words were searched for in 2024 that were not searched for in such numbers last year, because there are many words that are looked up year in and year out, day in and day out, because the dictionary is there to measure the language, not to measure the news. However, the news, of course, does cue a lot of our curiosity. And so in this case, we have a word like polarization, which is not a new word. It's not particularly difficult in terms of spelling, but it's a word that was really the focus of attention. And we saw a big lift this year. Not a single date, not like election day specifically, but actually the whole year taken as a whole. Kind of like the tide rising all boats we just saw this was the word that people were looking up.

[Listener]

Listeners, we would like to hear from you. What's your pick for the word of 2024? Why call or text us at 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC call out to shout out what you would pick as the word of the year. Or if you want to nominate a word to be added to the dictionary next year, we have one of the people who can help us make that happen. Call in now and make your case at 212433, WNYC. The press release also says, quote, the dictionary remains a neutral, trusted resour of people turn to in order to better understand the words that define our times. How important is the dictionary's neutrality?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Oh, it's. It's everything. The dictionary has to define words for everyone and for all sides. Otherwise, if we don't share an understanding of the language, then how can we possibly share ideas? How can we possibly ever compromise if we can't agree on terms? And so that is the most important thing. A neutral and objective arbiter of meaning is the job of the dictionary. And really that goes back to, you know, way before even Noah Webster in the 19th century. The idea is to have a repository of all of the neutral meanings of words. And it's just such an important part of our mission. It's essential to everything that we do, is that we do the research. And again, we let the public's use of language tell us how to write those definitions.

[Listener]

Got a text that says, my suggestion for the word of the year is unsustainable. I use it mostly to describe our American political system. The next text says, would love to hear your guests talk about the progression of the word literally. I've always wondered when the dictionary is going to expand its definition to include the exact opposite. But this year's usage seems to have shifted back to its original meaning, often acting as an affirmation to something someone just said.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, the sort of figurative use of literally has been defined in our dictionaries, I think, since about 1909, the big unabridged edition at that time, because literally is one of those words that's used as an intensifier. And what I mean by that is I could say to you, I literally died laughing, and you would understand that I, in fact, am not dead, and that I was adding intensity to dying laughing. And that's something that linguists call semantic bleaching. Semantic means meaning and bleaching, like with laundry. Semantic bleaching simply means that if I tell you I literally died laughing, then literally no longer carries meaning. It only intensifies the meaning of the other words in that sentence. And once you do that, then with any word, it could be a word like absolutely or, let's see, terribly, terribly. But any word like that suddenly becomes an intensifier, which means it no longer carries its literal, in this case, meaning or its etymological meaning, which is often what people are referring to. So the fact is, it's a normal function of language. It happens with many, many words. It's just that we notice this one a lot.

[Alison Stewart]

Our guest is Peter Sokolowski, Merriam Webster's editor at large. We're talking about the word of 2024. They chose polarization. We want to know what word would you choose to pick for 2024 and why? 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Let's talk about a couple of the runners up. Demure. Demure was driven by a meme video. We're going to listen actually to the original. Let's take a listen.

[Viral Video Speaker]

You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure, very mindful. I don't come to work with a green cut crease. I look like a clown when I go to work. I don't do too much. I'm very mindful. While I'm at work, see how I look? Very presentable.

[Alison Stewart]

All right, why did you pick demure versus mindful or presentable?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, this is a great example of where the data tells us very clearly demure was the word that sent people to the dictionary. So again, not a new word. It's been in English since the, since the 1300s and but in this case seemed really specific with this use and of course it went viral. So this is a term that sent people to the dictionary. It was very clear cut question of the data showing us the curiosity of the public.

[Listener]

Could you tell us what the actual pronunciation of that word is? Because I've heard it in very different ways.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, we only give demure as our phonetic transcription. Demure. And it comes from a French word. It kind of looks a little bit foreign, but it's certainly, you know, it's pretty easy to say demure. What else have you heard?

[Listener]

Oh, I've heard the demur. I've heard all kinds of different pronunciations, but I like yours. Let's see, we've got incredible. Someone texted that for this year, someone text perimenopause. Find the menopause. And perimenopause conversation is becoming more mainstream and the education is opening up thanks to a lot of advocates. That's very interesting.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Yes. Words can enter the kind of public discourse and become less sensitive or less offensive even. And in the case of medical terminology, of course, there is a kind of resistance to either privacy or embarrassment. And those things can be overcome and overcome rather quickly if the word is simply used in its sort of plain meaning. And that's probably true here.

[Listener]

I have a question here, a text question that says do many Languages have a dictionary as robust as English.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, I mean, we're very proud of our English Language Dictionary. But the fact is, that's a very good point. Robust. If you mean large, then English certainly is large. And there's a really good reason for that because of the Norman conquest back in 1066 and the fact that the Victorian notorious Normans used French as their bureaucratic language. What happened was English is full of synonyms with words that have roots in Anglo, Saxon or Old English and roots in French or Latin. So we have words, you know, just think about basic words like we could say kingly, which is an Old English word, or royal, which is the French word. They both mean the same thing. And that's true for almost everything you can think of, from food to body parts to. It's, you know, certainly all of our daily activities. So that we could say meal or we could say feast, for example. We have two words at least for everything in English. So that means our dictionary is a lot bigger than most other dictionaries.

[Listener]

We have a call online. 1. This is Jenny from Greenwich Village. Hi Jenny, thank you so much for calling all of it.

[Jenny]

Hi, thanks. I'm loving this show and thank you for your great explanations of words. I was calling, so I didn't catch the very beginning. So maybe you guys addressed this, but I don't think you did. I was wondering how, you know, what the most popular word is. Or that one that's sort of the zeitgeist or whatever. If it's a word that people would not look up, it's a word that but. But is used a lot more this year, say than last year. But people feel like they know what it is. So they wouldn't like Google it or look it up in the dictionary.

[Alison Stewart]

Really?

[Peter Sokolowski]

That's absolutely. Yeah, that's a great question. That's absolutely true. We're good at reading data, we're not good at reading minds. So the fact is there are plenty of words. I mean, I think back to the death of Michael Jackson was a period of intense curiosity. And the word icon was in every obituary and people looked that word up and the word emaciated ended up being one of the most looked up words of that year of his death because of the reported condition of his body. But one word that was not looked up was the word moon walk, which was in our dictionary as a verb and as a noun. And yet that word was also in most of his appreciations and obits. So the fact is we can sometimes sense the dog that didn't bark because people reading Michael Jackson's obituary are probably very familiar with the very narrow sense of moon lock. But the term emaciated suddenly used in a very narrow medical way and referring to one of the most wealthy and famous people in the world seemed like cognitive dissonance. And that's a really good reason to look up a word.

[Alison Stewart]

I've got one for you. Weird.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Oh, yes. Well, weird is, yeah, weird was a big news story, of course, weird. Here's an interesting mechanical thing. Weird is just hard to spell. I mean, the E and I thing is always a problem for English speakers. That's just something that is a mechanical problem for all of us, including me, by the way. I have to look up that word and check it. And so I suspect in this case there was maybe a question of is there a narrow use? Is there a specific use? Specificity is often the reason people look up a word that's familiar in other ways, like the word totality this year, which referred very specifically to a kind of lunar eclipse, even though totality is not a word, that's very difficult for most of us. So when a word seems legal or medical or scientific or technical. And in this case this weird use seemed very specific, but I suspect it was really just because people wanted to spell the word and they were checking it out.

[Alison Stewart]

Who else was on your, what else.

[Listener]

Was on your runner up list?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, also regarding politics, the term pander was used by both sides to accuse the other conservatives accused Vice President Harris of pandering to different groups like young voters or black voters or gun rights advocates. And then on the other side, Tim Walls himself accused Donald Trump of pandering when he visited a McDonald's. So pandering to hourly wage workers, for example. So this is a word once again, it seemed very specific and it was intense. I needn't tell you that this was an intense year of news regarding the election. And so it's not a surprise that terms relating to the election were looked up in the dictionary.

[Alison Stewart]

We're discussing the word of the Year polarization as well as its runners up. My guest is Peter Sokolowski, Merriam Webster's editor at large. We'll have more after a quick break.

[WNYC Studios]

This is WNYC Studios is supported by GiveWell. When you make a big purchase, say a car or a new mattress, how do you make sure that you're making the right choice? GiveWell provides an independent resource for a different kind of purchase, a donation. Over 100,000 donors have used GiveWell to donate. First time using GiveWell. When you go to givewell.org and pick podcast and enter WNYC at checkout, you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last.

Don't you love it when you find a new podcast you really like? Well, let me recommend one. It's called Something you should know. I'm Mike Carruthers, the host, and in every episode you'll hear fascinating information that will make your life better from top experts. Recently we've done episodes on why you have the personality you do, the science of luck and the psychology of a restaurant menu you're going to like. Something you should know. We have literally thousands of five star reviews. Look for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts.

[Alison Stewart]

Love it.

[Listener]

You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're talking to Peter Sokolowski, Merriam Webster's editor at large. We're talking about the word of 2024. They've chosen polarization as their word. We'd love to hear from you. What's your word pick for 2024 and why? 21243? You can call in and join us on the air or you can text to us at that number as well. There were other dictionaries we should say, Peter, that picked a word of the year and I want to get your take on a couple of those. Oxford English Dictionary picked brain rot. Its definition is the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material. Now, particularly online content considered to be trivial or un challenging. Did you guys come across brainrot?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, we don't enter that in the dictionary and they had a different metric. And I find it fascinating. Rather than measuring the words that visitors look up on our online dictionary, what Oxford did was they took a kind of census of published writing in a massive corpus. A corpus is just a gathering of words for search and research purposes. And what they found was brain rot was a term that occurred frequently in 2024 and very infrequently before that. So what they saw was that as we do measure the difference between the current year and previous years, the difference is of course they were measuring usage and we were measuring curiosity. So this kind of looking through the window in two different directions as it were, but a great and fascinating measure of our curiosity or our use of a new term that will almost certainly be a dictionary entry at some point.

[Listener]

The Collins English Dictionary selected brat that's a lowercase B, by the way, described as characterized by a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude. I'm curious how you feel about a word that is coined by someone famous, in this case Charlie XCX.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, I mean, we can all coin words and everybody should. It's a great thing to do. And in this case, of course, they're referring to something that went viral that was a very much an online phenomenon. And you know, there's a thing about end of year lists, top films, top albums, you know, that has the. For the public, has the sense of critics picking their favorites. And that's what a lot of people do. That's what some other dictionaries do. We try to keep to the data, to tell the truth about words and to have a story that connects with the curiosity of the public and the actual use of the dictionary. But also there are stories like this that are just fun use of language and there's nothing wrong with celebrating that too.

[Listener]

You added a number of subgenres in different areas. Freestyle and jam bands were added to the domain of music. As for narrative genres, we now have beach read for books, True crimes for any kind of narrative, Dungeon crawler for video games. We're looking at new words that are part of a broader system of categories. How can you tell when there's critical mass for a new word in a subgroup?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Right. Well, this is really. It's a very simple metric, which is if the word is used frequently, then it goes into the dictionary. So what happens is some of these subgroups will be only discussed in specialty publications or on specialty chats. And then when they flip over to the broader public to a bigger venue like Vogue or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Atlantic, once it goes into a general publication and without any kind of what I call linguistic white gloves. If a term like freestyle is used without a definition or a parenthesis or italics, if it's not used like a foreign word in other words, then that means that the editors of that publication think their writers are familiar with that term. And that means it's ready to go into the dictionary. It's a naturalized citizen of the English language. One thing about this, that batch is all of the ones that you cited. And so many from that batch were what we call compound words or compound terms like beach read and true crime and touch grass. And that's just. That just happens to be an artifact of this particular release. We have a few releases every year. And it's really true that these mashup words or these compound words or these portmanteau words. They bring real specificity and real meaning. And what it really does show is that beach read by itself you might understand, but it's actually a fixed form. It's been lexicalized. It's now its own thing. You can say, hey, that's a great beach read. And it really means a very narrow, specific thing.

[Alison Stewart]

Fascist is a word that may have lost its meaning. That's a text we got. Also, I've noticed writ large being used often, usage almost feels forced. We've got Russ, who's calling in from Wilton, Connecticut. Hi Russ, thanks for calling all of it.

[Russ]

Hi, thanks. Enjoying this. My question is about the math term turned phrase. I don't even know if it's in the dictionary of 100%. It's being used ubiquitously now in sports and politics and business and perhaps globally as well. I'm just curious your opinion on that.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, I have absolutely noticed that in the last couple of years. I hear that rhetorically, constantly by colleagues and certainly especially it's kind of a business jargony type term. But it's I hear it everywhere. And some of this is what I call the recency illusion. If you notice it once and you remark on it, then you're going to notice it every single time you hear it. And that's certainly true for me, just like it is for you, Russ. And we do not yet we do have an entry for 100% and we do define it meaning perfect or thorough or unquestionable. But this specific. Oh, I'm sorry, we do have it as an adverb, meaning without qualification, completely or entirely. So we do define this use the adverbial use of 100%. But I think it's sort of increase in usage in the last couple of years is absolutely real. And it's just one of those things that language has ups and downs and has trends just like everything else. And this is clearly a trend. And you've really noticed something that I've noticed also.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah, you have some fun additions to.

[Listener]

Like badassery and touch grass and idagf their bonafide dictionary entries.

[Alison Stewart]

Some people would call them slang. Do you describe them as slang?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, it depends on the term. I mean, you know, you know, slang is just, or you know, jargon is just usually a closed language. It's the language used by, among musicians, for example, or among skateboarders. You know, that that's, that's one thing. It means informal language is one thing that we identify and we will say in in the, in the definition that it's usually informal, which is to say to the read or to the user of the dictionary that you may not want to use this in professional or academic writing. A big part of the usage information of the dictionary is to avoid offending others and avoid embarrassing yourself. And that's why we give labels like slang or informal or regional terms, like British, for example. And that's an important part of the usage information given in the dictionary. So they are informal, but if they occur in print and especially in what we call carefully edited prose and publications, then that means that might be informal, but it's absolutely used frequently enough to be in the dictionary.

[Listener]

We've got a text that says some organizations should compile a year of the most common new cliches used on social media. Comments. Reach an example, read the room. What are you on about? Let's also talk to Richard from Jersey City. Hi, Richard, thanks for calling, all of it.

[Russ]

Oh, my goodness. So glad to be on your show again. Thank you. The word that has been making me nuts, it's really gotten up my nose is vibe. It used to be if you had bad vibes about somebody you met, you didn't trust them, you had a bad feeling from them or something. Now, oh, it's a vibe which can mean anything. It doesn't mean anything.

[Listener]

Let's get your response, Peter.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Yeah, well, no, that's another trend. Absolutely. And first of all, all of us have pet peeves, and every pet peeve is as valid as the next. So. And that just determines in some ways how we choose our own words. But vibe, meaning a distinctive feeling or quality, it has expanded without question. Richard is right. It has expanded into this sort of catch all for an emotional reaction to something. And whether or not that ever gets isolated in the dictionary, I'm not sure. But right now, a distinctive feeling or quality capable of being sensed, which is our present definition, it does to me encompass that idea. It's just that it seems like that idea is expanding as Richard implies. And he's right. It's a trendy term right now.

[Listener]

A question for you. We got a text that says, do they remove words each year?

[Peter Sokolowski]

Well, because the dictionary is online, the online dictionary doesn't have any space restrictions. So the answer is no, we don't remove. However, in the print edition, there are some famous things that have been removed and mostly the words removed are making room for more useful terms. So I promise you, these are boring words for the most part, and they're mostly compound words. We were just talking about compound words a minute ago. Compound words tend to be self evident. So I know that in the last edition, the term crossbowman, meaning one who wields a crossbow, and the term plantsman, meaning a gardener, those were two terms that were removed and they saved us a couple lines each and allowed us to put in other new vocabulary. So yes, we do sometimes remove words. We don't often have to put them back in.

[Alison Stewart]

This is a funny text. We got brain rot. The OED's word is the reason for polarization. What is? You know, we do this every year. It's so much fun. It's interesting. What does it mean to you to pick a word of the year?

[Peter Sokolowski]

What it does for me is something. It's very important, which is every year it's another validation of the public utility of the dictionary. The dictionary is a public tool. It is for everyone. We know that it's used by conservatives and by liberals, it's used by students and by professors. And the fact is we know that the in urgent intensity of, for example, the lockdown in Covid, we could see in the data, we could see which words were being looked up. The words like quarantine or scientific terms. And very poignantly, a word like canceled. And I think a lot of people just wanted to know, is there one L or two in that word? And so what we can see is that the dictionary is being used by everybody. And it's being used for very serious and important reasons. And that really validates all of the serious work that we do to revise and maintain the dictionary. So it really gives me a lot of faith in the curiosity of the public and it shows that we are paying attention.

[Alison Stewart]

Peter Zakaloski. He is editor at large at Merriam Webster's Dictionary. The word of the polarization. Peter, we'll talk to you next year.

[Peter Sokolowski]

Always a treat. Thank you.

[WNYC Studios]

Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. Since then, New York Public Radio's rigorous journalism has gone on to win a Peabody Award and a Dupont Columbia Award, among others. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.