In an earlier post, I had mentioned that Disctionary.com had announced demure — “characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved,”  — as its Word of the Year. Now the Oxford University Press has taken a completely different approach. Its 2024 Oxford Word of the Year is brain rot — “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

Ignoring for the moment that it’s actually two words, this is the rationale Oxford provided on its website:

“After over 37,000 votes, worldwide public discussion, and analysis of our language data, we have named ‘brain rot’ as our Word of the Year for 2024.

Our experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.

The first recorded use of ‘brain rot’ was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, but has taken on new significance as an expression in the digital age.“

To read more about this choice, go to https://corp.oup.com/news/brain-rot-named-oxford-word-of-the-year-2024/