2024-01-02 11:18:21
Novel or well-known, mainstream or niche, serious or fun, the words of the year help us think about how we use language, how it evolves and, above all, to draw a portrait of the year that is ending through the words that they crossed it.
And in this case they draw a period marked by the hallucinations that generates artificial intelligence and its contrast with things authenticthe growing political and social controversies and the consequences of a crisis and skyrocketing inflation in many countries.
Polarization: a world that is grouped at its extremes
In the Spanish-speaking world, it is the Urgent Spanish Foundation (Fundéu) that, since 2013, chooses the term that best defines the year.
In this 2023 your chosen one has been Polarizationincluded in the dictionary since 1884, but unfortunately very present in political and social life, the sports world, the debate on digital platforms and many other scenarios in which there seems to be an unstoppable tendency for positions to distance themselves from each other and cover the ends.
The “amazing world” that AI opens before us
A year earlier, in 2022, Fundéu’s word of the year was artificial intelligence. Its acronym in English, AIare this year’s choice of the prestigious American dictionary Harper Collins.
Curiously, two other institutions that designate the word of the year in English, the Cambridge dictionary and dictionary.com, have agreed on their choice, also related in some way to omnipresent artificial intelligence: hallucinate (hallucinate in Spanish).
Because, as dictionary.com notes, that verb has added a new meaning in the world of digital technology and artificial intelligence: “to produce false information contrary to the user’s intention and present it as if it were true and objective.”
Artificial intelligence systems, popularized in recent months, are also behind, although in a different way, the decision of the American dictionary MerriamWebster: authentic (authentic).
And with AI, they say, “the line between what is “real” and what is “fake” has become increasingly blurred” and, consequently, in social networks and the marketing Authenticity has taken on enormous importance.
In Galician, the choice is made by the Portal das Palabras of the Royal Galician Academy and the Barrié Foundation. This year her followers, who choose the winner by popular vote, have used humor and neology and have given the award to cybercarracho (cyber tick), a new creation to refer to cybercrime that, like the arachnid to which the word refers, parasitizes the institutions and people that suffer its attacks.
The crisis has a lot to do with language
The crisis (crises, actually) have also given a lot of play when it comes to choosing word of the year.
The German Language Society (GfdS, for its acronym in German), one of the pioneers in searching for the term that best defines the period that is ending, has chosen to Crisis mode (crisis mode), which is almost a way of being in the world.
«We are surrounded by crises; Crises not yet overcome, such as climate change, the war between Russia and Ukraine or the energy crisis, are being overtaken by new crises: the war in the Middle East, inflation, the debt crisis…”, notes the institution.
By the way, among the ten GfdS finalists was A scandal (kiss scandal), in reference to the Rubiales case.
The Australian dictionary Macquarie is also going down the path of crisis and opts for cozzie livesan untranslatable term that is an informal and almost humorous way of referring to the (skyrocketing) cost of living and the problems that come with it.
Another publisher dedicated to dictionaries (in this case Dutch), Van Dale, has also looked at inflation and has chosen grabflationan acronym formed from greed e inflation and in Spanish it would be something like codinflation.
And yes, it means what it seems: the increase in prices caused by the greed of certain production or distribution companies that take advantage of any situation to increase their profits at the expense of the consumer’s pocket.
Rizzthe power of charisma
What is perhaps the most popular choice in the world, the one made by the editors of the well-known Oxford dictionaries, has opted for rizz, a curious shortening of the word charisma (curious because it has not been created, as usual, with the beginning or end of the word, but with its intermediate syllable).
Those responsible for the election explain that, in a world marked by personal and professional public relations, “what is needed to succeed is the ability to attract another person through style, charm or attractiveness.” I mean, a lot of charisma, charisma in English or, more fashionable, its abbreviated form rizz.
Its use has skyrocketed in 2023, they say, especially after the charismatic actor Tom Holland used it in an interview just to say that he lacked it: “I don’t have it.” rizz absolutely”. Paradoxes of language and trends.
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