Back in December last year I wrote a second opinion piece on words of the year for the Conversation. You can find it here… *
At the end of January this year the Lexis Podcast team kindly invited me to discuss some of those words and why – if – they were really significant. We also looked at new terms recorded in 2025 so far, making a first attempt to explain and assess them, and to wonder which if any of them might endure. Our discussion, which went on for 40 minutes, is here…
…and, from February, a little puzzle for you. Can you unscramble and reassemble these two-word novelties? (Thanks to simplewordcloud.com)
It’s now July, and my attempts to go on recording this year’s wholly new, or reworked and updated termsand expressions have been interrupted by the need to react to the news-cycle – to the sinister euphemisms, avoidances and untruths perpetrated by war criminals, would-be dictators and their servants in the media. Examples of their language have been added my glossary of toxic terminology and the updated version is here…
John Belgrove reminded me that in May Donald Trump bragged of coming up with a new word – ‘a good word’, but the word in question was ‘equalising’. I have managed nonetheless, with the help of other friends and contacts on Twitter, BlueSky, Instagram and Facebook, to gather a few more examples of lexical innovation, candidates for an end-of year survey in due course…
But I would very much welcome suggestions of other new words and phrases, ideally together with their meanings and comments on their usage in context. All donations will be credited and donors thanked.
A research portal for scholars, the press and the public
The Slang and New Language Archive was created in 1994 while I was Director of the Language Centre at King’s College London. The archive, consisting of a small library of books and periodicals and a number of databases and sub-directories, was designed as a repository for the collection, storage and dissemination of new language, in particular examples of nonstandard varieties of English such as slang, jargon and buzzwords. The archive was later expanded to take in examples of media language, political language, linguistic curiosities and etymologies. It remains a resource, unique in the UK and not-for-profit, assisting researchers, students, teachers and journalists, as well as non-specialists, in accessing information about aspects of contemporary language that are under-represented in traditional dictionaries and reference works.
This link will take you to the Archive webpage at King’s College, where there are further links to relevant articles and published sources…
Glossaries from the archive may be accessed on this site by entering keywords, such as slang, jargon, MLE (Multiethnic London English), familect (highly colloquial language used in the home), coronaspeak (language related to the COVID-19 pandemic) and weaponised words (the contentious language of Brexit, populism and biased reporting) and slurs (racist and misogynist terms) in the search box. Once you have accessed a post of interest, check the tags and categories at the foot of the page for other articles or glossaries on the same topic.
Two of the larger archive datafiles are hosted on Aston University’s Institute of Forensic Linguistics Databank site. These are a glossary of current youth slang…
Please note that the King’s archive focuses principally on contemporary language, that is terms used from the twentieth century to the present day. If you are interested in historical slang, I strongly recommend the monumental work by my associate, the British lexicographer Jonathon Green. His dictionary, now generously freely available online, lists current and historical slang terms with timelines and citations illustrating their usage and development…
For more information, for queries, or to donate examples of language, contact me via this website or via the King’s College webpage. I’m on Twitter as @tonythorne007 too.
In terms of new slang and nonstandard language there are few reliable resources online. In February 2025, however, US publisher Merriam-Webster launched their own slang dictionary. You can find it here…
Among the many more informal glossaries and wordlists of slang posted on the internet in 2025, this review of slang in English schools is unusually comprehensive and accurate…
A (nearly) new lexicon describes new attitudes to work
I spoke last week to Financial Times journalist Emma Jacobs about so-called ‘Polygamous Working‘, part of the new vocabulary of the workplace generated by younger employees still coming to terms with a post-pandemic work-life balance. Holding a second job is not necessarily illegal providing it is disclosed, but recent reports describe hundreds of public sector workers in the UK illicitly receiving multiple salaries from simultaneous jobs. When the idea of a polyamorous workplace first surfaced three or so years ago, some business gurus hailed it as a positive trend: “Polygamous careers are giving workers the opportunity to hone new skills, fully leverage their knowledge, and pursue numerous interests at once. The emphasis is on contributing to various projects and roles, as opposed to working exclusively with a specific employer.”
“In this context new expressions like “quiet quitting” and “task masking” are gaining traction. They are, says writer and lexicographer Tony Thorne, “self-consciously coined and promoted like memes”, designed to go viral. Thorne thinks this suggests the young people using them are not lazy, but “more resistant to accepting traditional notions of work, workplaces and work etiquette”. Perhaps no surprise, given they grew up in the aftermath of Brexit and the pandemic.“
Gen Z in particular have a different take on work-life balance and really on the nature of work itself I think. They approach these things as part of a wider matrix of lifestyle modes, (self-help and self actualisation and curating relationships) what they call ‘vibes’ and ‘aesthetics’ and performative behaviour. We can’t forget also that their behaviour even at work often reflects their pervasive use of irony, sarcasm and self-parody.
This is reflected in the terminology they have adopted of course. I think another aspect which hasn’t been discussed much is the fact that GenZ have not been conditioned by the sort of corporate culture, office culture or lingering work ethic that Gen X and millennials were conditioned by. Add to this the fact that they more than anyone have undergone the disruption caused by Brexit, the aftermath of austerity and the pandemic and so may be more resistant to accepting traditional notions of work, workplaces and work etiquette.
There is yet another way in which things are different for younger cohorts. They exist in a globalised online reality where trends in behaviour are not driven by ‘authorities’ or ‘professionals’ but by influencers and content creators chasing clicks and clout. New expressions are not just words or phrases which spread by word of mouth but may be self consciously coined and promoted like memes. They may not simply exist as sounds and spellings but also accompany images and soundtracks (as on TikTok). Linguists might call them ‘multimodal‘.
Neither the notions they describe or the terms themselves are completely new. Back in 2005* I reported ironic office slang such as ‘FaceTiming’, just putting in an appearance to suggest dedication to the job, ‘Sunlighting’ (like moonlighting), aka ‘Dual Jobbing‘, doing a quite different job one day a week. ‘WFH‘, ‘Remote Working‘, ‘Hybrid Working‘ – and ‘Side Hustles‘ – were later coinages prompted by enforced flexibility. The end of the pandemic saw the ‘Great Resignation‘ of 2021 as disillusioned workers supposedly abandoned unfulfilling careers en masse. Employers were encouraged to promote ‘Cross-Skilling‘, training staff to perform a wider range of functions, and ‘Job-Crafting‘, allowing employees to design their own roles.
Emma’s article with contributions from Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, is here…
Last week I was interviewed by two young journalists about the pervasive slang generated by Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Interestingly both journalists are operating outside the US/UK matrix from which much of this language variety emanates. Interestingly too, both journalists asked similar questions about the latest linguistic novelties and how we might respond to them. Kanika Saxena‘s piece appeared in the Economic Times of India, and my contribution is here…
1. How do new slang words take root in a generation? Do they slowly build momentum, or does one viral moment suddenly put them everywhere?
In the past it could take some time for slang to escape from the local social group (‘in-group’ or ‘peer group’: a group of friends, a gang, fellow workers, etc.) where it originates into the outside world, then to spread by word of mouth into other parts of society, finally perhaps being picked up by the entertainment or print media. Nowadays this process has been massively speeded up by messaging and the internet, so that a novel term can go viral and reach beyond its original community almost instantaneously. New expressions can spread via social media and platforms like TikTok, Youtube, InstaGram right across the ‘anglosphere’ and go global.
2. Some words stick around for decades, while others vanish overnight. What makes certain slang words stand the test of time?
Linguists have tried to analyse why some terms become briefly fashionable and then disappear while others endure. There don’t seem to be any rules that govern why this happens. Some experts think that words which convey important social or technological innovations or that reflect current ‘moods’ or preoccupations are likely to have a longer appeal, but there’s no real proof of this. It could also be because a word relates to important social behaviour or relationships: insults, terms of endearment, ‘dating’ language, complaining, identity labels, for example, have to be reinvented for each successive generation, then persist until their users mature or grow older.
3. With social media throwing new words at us daily, are we actually creating more slang than before, or does it just feel that way because everything is amplified online?
It’s hard to say if the total ‘volume’ of slang has increased because, in the past at least, it was impossible to quantify it. What is definitely true is that slang has for some time become more accepted by mainstream media whereas it used to be censored or ignored. We also have the very new phenomenon whereby influencers, TikTok stars and content creators are using online resources to consciously, deliberately create, promote and spread new terms, so slang is no longer just coming ‘up from the streets’ (or spread via music, TV and movies) but is a commodity exchanged and pushed to gain prestige or sell oneself.
4. Older generations always seem skeptical of new slang—until, of course, they start using it too. What’s the secret to a word crossing generational lines?
Parents, teachers and ‘authority figures’ generally start by decrying younger people’s language and avoiding or ignoring it or trying to ban it. (This isn’t really justified by the way: slang may be seen as socially marginal but is not technically deficient or defective language and uses the same techniques as poetry or literature) But if a term is adopted by the media (‘woke’ is an example) they may in a few cases start to use it themselves. Technological terms (‘spam’, ‘troll’ etc.) and lifestyle jargon may be invented or used by older speakers. I always warn parents, though, not to try and imitate their kids by borrowing their slang. In the kids’ own language this is extremely ‘cringe’.
My second interview was with Austėja Zokaitė who is based in Lithuania and it appears in the online magazine Bored Panda, an arresting and anarchic daily roundup of the latest viral images, memes and commentary on internet culture. The whole report is here, with my comments interspersed with the succession of visual elements…
Are the machine learning tools and chatbots that work with human language creating, or just impersonating?
I spoke this week to Rob Booth, the Guardian’s UK Technology Editor, about the latest interfacing between AI and human language interactions, a topic I am only just beginning to explore. Rob’s perceptive analysis with contributions from my friend Professor Rob Drummond, is here…
A few days earlier French business journalist Jacques Henno asked if AI could now actually create language rather than merely replicate it or imitate it…
“I’d like to know your opinion on the impact of generative AI tools on language evolution. These tools, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and others, don’t invent but simply reproduce learned content. What do you think their influence will be on written and spoken language?”
Primitive versions of AI have been used for some time to generate new terms, notably brand names and product names. These can be generated by entering desirable associations or attributes plus related names or keywords into an engine which will produce new combinations of words or completely new items of vocabulary.
Likewise, there have been business or corporate ‘jargon or buzzword generators’ in use for some years which can be activated for fun to create new (and supposedly absurd or comical) terms. https://www.feedough.com/business-jargon-generator/
AI can already create new languages in order to translate or interpret communication systems and to mediate between other non-human ‘languages’ such as programming languages or symbolic or mathematical systems. These languages however are not generally usable for normal human interactions and not normally recognisable as languages by non-specialists
More recently, more powerful and sophisticated AI tools have been introduced which claim to work with the technical mechanisms and structures of existing languages (the ways in which English, French, Russian, etc. form words and attach word-endings, change nouns to verbs, for example and the way in which Hungarian, Mandarin, Hindi, etc. arrange words or characters in order) and with their use of metaphor and semantic shift (extending the meaning of a concept). These can already create new words. Two examples are here…
But despite the sophistication of the latest Large Language Models and language-generating AI tools, there are still predictable areas in which the material they produce is often deficient or defective. Real language innovation does not just involve using the structures of existing languages or adding prefixes or suffixes to existing words or combining syllables in a new way. Even a machine-learning tool which can understand and manipulate metaphor, synonymy, imagery can’t yet grasp the subtleties of human inventiveness, or the psychological and physical processes involved in making new language which is genuinely usable, pleasing, convincing and ‘authentic’. Creating new words involves – as in literature, poetry but also in everyday professional or social life – drawing on cultural allusions, references to shared values, knowledge of fashion, beliefs, cultural history, local conditions, jokes and styles of humour, etc. Apart from style, register, tone, appropriacy (tailoring one’s choice of words to the context in which they are used), etc. another key linguistic concept that AI will struggle to cope with is ‘implicature’, the human tendency to express things indirectly, to infer.
Another aspect of language which AI finds it hard to understand or replicate is what is called ‘phonaesthetics’ or ‘sound symbolism’. This involves the sounds and pronunciations (and the look of the word on the page too) of words and the psychological effects these sounds have on the mind of the hearer, many of the words created by AI just don’t sound or look like real words. This has been a problem in generating brand names or product names, many of which look or sound ugly and unappealing to potential consumers or users.
There are so many tiny social cues in real-life human interactions that are not always pattern behaviour or even precedented and are often based on abstract ideas. They may also involve allusion, shared cultural reference and often irony and humour. There is also something called ‘embodied metaphoricity’: “For a mental representation to be “embodied” in the sense most commonly invoked by metaphor researchers, it must be instantiated at least in part by a simulation of prior or potential bodily experiences, within modality-specific components of the brain’s input and output systems (e.g., visual cortex, motor cortex; Barsalou 1999)”, in other words understanding is ‘seeing’, knowing is ‘grasping’. Humans activate this instinctively and can reflect on it intellectually: AI in its present incarnations can’t do either.
Developers and programmers are well aware of many, if not all, of these problem areas and are energetically attempting to address them…
My observations so far have been based on a very superficial understanding of exactly how large language models and generative AI work. I’m therefore very grateful indeed to Dr Joe McIntyre for his recommendation of this explanatory guide…
I’m recommending a role for linguists in monitoring AI’s ability to understand or replicate the nuances of human speech. This project is pioneering a sociolinguistic approach to the question of bias in AI-generated content…
Very belatedly I asked ChatGPT itself to tell me about AI’s drawbacks in handling or reproducing human language. It offered me two responses which I reproduce here…
The first response…
AI has made great strides in handling human language, but it still has notable weaknesses:
Context Limitations: AI struggles with maintaining long-term context in lengthy conversations or documents, which can lead to inconsistencies or irrelevant responses.
Ambiguity: Human language is often ambiguous, and AI might misinterpret subtle nuances, slang, or idiomatic expressions, leading to incorrect or nonsensical outputs.
Lack of World Knowledge: While AI can access vast amounts of information, it lacks true understanding or lived experience, which can make it difficult to handle subjective, emotional, or cultural contexts.
Subtlety in Tone: Sarcasm, irony, and humor are challenging for AI to detect and respond to appropriately, especially without clear contextual markers.
Ethical Judgment: AI can falter in making ethical or moral judgments when the appropriate course of action requires nuanced human values or cultural sensitivity.
Bias in Training Data: AI can inherit and even amplify biases present in its training data, leading to unfair or problematic language generation.
Difficulty in Creative Expression: While AI can mimic creative writing styles, it often lacks originality, deeper insight, or the emotional depth that comes from human creativity.
Overconfidence: AI can confidently provide incorrect answers because it doesn’t inherently know when it lacks the required knowledge or context to respond accurately.
The second response…
1. Lack of True Understanding
AI processes language based on patterns and statistical associations but doesn’t truly “understand” meaning or context the way humans do. This can lead to misunderstandings or inappropriate responses in nuanced situations.
2. Ambiguity in Context
Human language is highly context-dependent. Ambiguities, idioms, sarcasm, or double meanings can confuse AI, especially if the context is insufficient or contradicts typical patterns.
3. Inability to Handle Novelty
AI struggles with completely new or rare scenarios that lack sufficient training data. If faced with language or ideas it hasn’t been trained on, it might provide irrelevant or nonsensical responses.
4. Bias in Language Models
AI models can inherit biases from their training data, leading to biased or insensitive outputs. These biases reflect the data sources used and are difficult to eliminate completely.
5. Rigidity in Logic
AI often interprets instructions literally and may struggle with flexible or creative problem-solving, especially when the input is vague or requires unconventional reasoning.
6. Lack of Emotional Intelligence
While AI can mimic empathetic responses, it lacks genuine emotional awareness or the ability to fully grasp the emotional subtext in complex human interactions.
7. Limited Common Sense
Despite improvements, AI still struggles with common-sense reasoning, particularly when it involves understanding the physical world or day-to-day human experiences.
8. Overconfidence in Responses
AI can sometimes generate confident-sounding but incorrect or misleading answers, as it has no internal mechanism to distinguish between what it knows well and what it doesn’t.
9. Difficulty with Long-Term Coherence
Maintaining coherence in extended conversations or texts can be challenging for AI, especially when the discussion involves multiple threads or evolves over time.
10. Cultural and Linguistic Nuances
AI may falter in understanding or generating culturally specific expressions, regional dialects, or less commonly spoken languages, especially if training data is sparse.
I later spoke to author Mark Piesing on the same subject, and his very informative review in the Bookseller is here…
And in May 2025 I came across this interesting study which, at first sight, seems to suggest hitherto unexpected capacities for AI in precisely the areas suggested as deficient above…
Researching and tracking the latest slang can now draw upon statistical analysis of online data.
As 2024 draws to its end and talk among lexicographers, culture journalists and language buffs turns to ‘words of the year’, I’m immensely grateful to Randoh Sallihall of Unscramblerer for providing me with his datasets showing lookups (Google searches) for the most popular recent slang expressions…
Most searched for slang words in United Kingdom:
1. Gaslighting (170 000 searches) – a type of manipulation that makes you doubt your memories and feelings. The person doing it may lie and deny things.
2. Skibidi (125 000 searches) – refers to a viral internet trend featuring surreal, animated videos of singing toilets and dancing heads, popularized on platforms like TikTok for its bizarre humor.
3. Pookie (47 000 searches) – to show endearment and affection. Used for a close friend, partner or family member. A playful way to say someone is special.
4. Hawk tuah (40 000 searches) – imitative of a spitting sound. The catchphrase originates from a viral street interview conducted in June 2024 with Haliey Welch, who stated that her signature move for making a man ‘go crazy’ in bed was to ‘give him that hawk tuah and spit on that thang’.
5. Sigma (37 000 searches) – refers to an independent, self-reliant person who operates outside traditional social hierarchies, often described as a ‘lone wolf.’
6. SMH (31 000 searches) – internet slang for ‘shaking my head’. Used to express disapproval or disappointment.
7. Demure (26 000 searches) – reserved, modest or shy in manner or appearance. The TikTok user Jools Lebron made a series of viral videos using the phrase “very demure”. This trend gave the word a playful slang meaning. She uses it to assess appropriate makeup and fashion choices in various settings.
8. Rizz (25 000 searches) – style, charm or attractiveness. The ability to attract a romantic partner and make others like you.
9. Dei (17 000 searches) – diversity, equity, inclusion. A family friendly way of saying woke.
10. Aura (13 000 searches) – the vibe someone gives off. When used by tweens and teens it is likely a reference to how badass someone is. Aura points make you cooler. So you definitely want to earn more aura points instead of losing them.
We can compare this list with Randoh’s equivalent for the USA, used in the Newsweek article posted previously to which I contributed, and reproduced here with his explanatory comments…
Analysis of Google search data for 2024 reveals the most searched for slang words in America:
1. Demure (260 000 searches) – reserved, modest or shy in manner or appearance. The TikTok user Jools Lebron made a series of viral videos using the phrase “very demure”. This trend gave the word a playful slang meaning. She uses it to assess appropriate makeup and fashion choices in various settings.
2. Sigma (220 000 searches) – refers to an independent, self-reliant person who operates outside traditional social hierarchies, often described as a ‘lone wolf.’
3. Skibidi (205 000 searches) – refers to a viral internet trend featuring surreal, animated videos of singing toilets and dancing heads, popularized on platforms like TikTok for its bizarre humor.
4. Hawk tuah (180 000 searches) – imitative of a spitting sound. The catchphrase originates from a viral street interview conducted in June 2024 with Haliey Welch, who stated that her signature move for making a man ‘go crazy’ in bed was to ‘give him that hawk tuah and spit on that thang’.
5. Sobriquet (105 000 searches) – a nickname or descriptive name given to a person or thing. Borrowed from French sobriquet (nickname).
6. Schmaltz (65 000 searches) – refers to excessive sentimentality or melodrama. Often used for art, movies, music or storytelling if there is too much sappiness.
7. Sen (50 000 searches) – slang for self.
8. Katz (34 000 searches) – a term for anything enjoyable, fun or pleasing. It can also mean ‘yes’.
9. Oeuvre (25 000 searches) – refers to the complete works produced by an artist, writer or composer. A word used by literature professors to express superiority.
10. Preen (20 000 searches) – slang for a child who tries to act like a teenager(wears teen clothes or makeup).
A spokesperson for Unscramblerer.com commented on the findings: “The English language is ever changing. Every year new slang words are created. Many slang words are born through trending topics and viral videos on social media. However only few manage to stick around long enough to be added to the dictionary and remain in daily use. Slang words are a normal and fun evolution of language. We encourage everyone to learn some new words and surprise their children by using them.”
Research was conducted by word-finding experts at Unscramblerer.com.
We analyzed 01.01.2024 -25.10.2024 search data from Google Trends for terms related to slang words.
Methodology: We used Google Trends to discover the top trending slang terms and Ahrefs to find the number of searches. Americas most popular slang terms can be discovered in Google Trends through the keyword ‘meaning’. People will hear or read slang terms and search for the meaning of the term (example ‘demure meaning’). Ahrefs shows many variations of meaning searches like ‘slang’ or ‘trend’ (example ‘demure slang’) and similar keyword combinations (example ‘what does demure mean’). We added up 150 search variations of top slang terms.
A few days after Randoh’s findings were published, I was asked by Robert Milazzo* to take part in the masterclass on new slang and youth language that he convened at Virginia Commonwealth University. The whole lively one-hour event was recorded and can be accessed here…
Robert’s class was particularly illuminating, allowing as it did for contributions from young slang users themselves and from puzzled old-timers too. Bear in mind that the samples handled by data analysts are taken solely from online usage and not from authentic speech. Nearly all the slang used on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, etc. originates in the USA whereas the slang terms used by British youth in their IRL conversations will differ considerably from their North American counterparts, showing much greater influence from African Caribbean rather than African American sources.
Dictionary makers and journalists are breathlessly – if not desperately – publicising the latest online language – but do they really understand it?
One week on, I spoke to Chloe MacDowell of the UK Guardian newspaper, then to Marni McFall of the US Newsweek magazine on the topic of TikTok language and the online messaging mannerisms of Influencers and GenZ. Chloe was interested in one particular trending TikTok catchphrase, Marni in the whole panoply of 2024’s viral innovations.
Once authentic conversations and personal interactions (previously happening in private spaces or local communities) began to feature on the internet and in messaging and on microblogging platforms, language novelties, slang and faddish usages crossed over from a private realm into the global public domain. The latest slang and new language was visible, audible and immediately available to share. Obscure or exotic terms might quickly catch on and become viral favourites, spreading in some cases across the anglosphere more rapidly than print, broadcast or word-of-mouth transmission had ever been to achieve in the past.
Words and phrases began to function like memes, taking on sometimes a ‘multimodal’ aspect whereby sound and image could reinforce the purely verbal expressions that people chose to exchange and promote. Pre-internet there had always been catchphrases, what linguists call ‘vogue words’, slogans and soundbites, and keywords that somehow seemed to evoke or encapsulate some special aspect of the ‘zeitgeist’. What we have now is a much more knowing, deliberate intention (on the part of trend-setters, influencers, ‘thought-leaders’) to create new language to celebrate new identities and to promote new attitudes and lifestyle innovations to the widest possible audience.
Subcultures like surfers, valley girls, fanboys and girls, hip hop aficionados had always invented striking, expressive language and this is still true, but instead of niche culture we have ‘meganiches’, instead of subcultures we are dealing with globalised communities.
The fashionable language of TikTok and GenZ in particular is part of their wider obsession with vibes, aesthetics and microtrends, many of which arise and are discarded in rapid succession. The prevalent style is exhibitionist, self-promoting, allusive and often ironic, increasingly even absurdist, making it hard for outsiders to grasp the nuances in play. Older commentators and dictionary publishers struggle to keep pace, often misunderstand and record the terms in desperation (in their searches for ‘word of the year’ for example) just as they fall out of use.
The use of this language as an identity marker in an intensely competitive digital ecosystem means that the Gen Alpha cohort now ridicule GenZ usages as being out-of date, while GenZ is still deriding millennials for their old-fashioned ‘cringe’ vocabulary. At the same time would-be influencers practise bragging, ‘manifesting’ and other forms of self-congratulation in a search for clicks and clout.
One of the latest features of online wordplay is the elevating of an older concept or cliche into a teasing provocation or pretence at new insights, as we have seen with ‘delulu’, ‘demure’ and ‘mindful’, ‘rizz’ and ‘brat’. The current rash of declarations of ‘being privileged’ – a new version of ‘humblebragging’ or ‘virtue-signalling’ – is another example. In parallel is the ironic celebration of the incoherence or absurdity of much online discourse and of low-quality ‘slop’ by embracing a culture of ‘brainrot’ – nonsense memes such as ‘skibidi’ and vacuous, contagious content.
Most of the innovation in online language and image still emanates from the US and even though a global audience can access it instantly, its tropes (think ‘goblin-mode’ – ‘goblin’ doesn’t have the same associations for Brits) don’t always translate for other speakers of English. In parallel, poses, gestures and looks as well as music-related modes are increasingly generated from non-English cultural zones such as Japan and Korea. It will be interesting to see if other parts of the globe begin to play a part in the evolving online theatre of signs and behaviours, but this doesn’t seem to have happened yet.
On the first of November Collins Dictionaries, ahead of the pack, had already announced their choice of word of the year for 2024, and their candidates illustrated the same, in my opinion mistaken, concentration exclusively on terms from a very narrow range of sources. While postings on social media are performances designed to attract attention, there is an even wider domain in which discourse demands analysis: the crises in the Middle East and Ukraine and the surreal spectacle of the US presidential campaigns, for example, are also highlighting keywords and generating new formulations or reworkings of language – data that mainstream media and lexicographers seem to think unworthy of their attention…
Digital media enables language change and innovation – of course, but how much and for how long?
I spoke to Caitlin Talbot, Culture Researcher for the Economist magazine, who asked me about the effect of TikTok talk and the slang, catchphrases and viral puns invented by Gen Z. Caitlin wondered how many new terms were actually being added to the global conversation each year, and whether these novelties would last.
My own solo attempts to record new language and to understand and comment on its sources rely on fairly haphazard, old-fashioned techniques, so it’s not possible for me to quantify the lexical items, locutions, expressions and longer elements of discourse that I come across. The major dictionary publishers do have access to powerful and sophisticated electronic methods of scanning, scraping (‘aggregating’ as it should more properly be termed) raw linguistic data from across the internet. This material can be categorised to a certain extent and entered into giant databanks from which lexicographers can select the terms they periodically admit into published dictionaries.
Attempts to amass and analyse examples of language in use are nonetheless hampered by several considerations: the language in question is primarily in the form of text, rather than authentic speech, and the texts in question are largely recoverable from published sources and media platforms, only to a limited extent from personal messages. Tracking their use over time is possible, and the popularity of some usages can be subjected to frequency counts and represented on timelines, but private use and communications by local and specialist communities is far harder to assess. One of the more interesting challenges to the lexicographer is to predict which novel terms may become embedded in the national conversation and which drop out of use – some almost immediately and others over time. In fact my experience (since I began to collect slang in the 1980s) proves that it’s impossible to predict, let alone to speculate as to why this happens.
Caitlin’s article, with useful links, is here…(if it is paywalled for you, go to here *)
In speculating about the number of new terms generated (and the playful, sometimes absurdist tendencies featuring on social media involve not only inventing new terms but reworking and re-purposing existing language like ‘demure’, ‘babygirl’, ‘millennial pause’, etc.) we can only fall back on subjective, anecdotal, incomplete accounts, even if these may be interesting and informative in their way…
THE WORD “demure” is old—it describes the sort of modest lady Victorians esteemed—but it is freshly fashionable. There are some 800,000 posts on TikTok with the tag #demure. Youngsters today are using the word with lashings of irony, invoking it to describe everything from Saturn to sunset to New York City’s bin service.
TikTok is changing how young people talk. Other fusty words, such as “coquette”, are fashionable again. Colloquialisms are on the rise: members of Gen Z say “yapping” instead of “talking” and trim “delusional” to “delulu”. New words have also become popular. Take “skibidi”, a term popularised by a meme of an animated head singing in a toilet; it means “cool”, “bad” or “very”, depending on the context.
On social media words spread far and fast. At least 100 English words are produced, or given new meaning, on TikTok a year, reckons Tony Thorne, director of the Slang and New Language Archive at King’s College London. Some linguists think the platform is changing not just what youngsters are saying, but how they are saying it. A “TikTok accent”, which includes “uptalk”, an intonation that rises at the end of sentences, may be spreading.
The platform’s versatility encourages experimentation. Users can combine audio, text and video in a single post. That means words that sound especially satisfying can go viral, as well as those that are memorable in written form. Linguistic code has emerged, dubbed “algospeak”, to dodge content-moderation algorithms. It includes euphemisms (sex workers are called “accountants”), and misspellings (“seggs” instead of sex).
The mutation of language on TikTok is also due, in large part, to the age of its users. Most are 18-34 years old. That matters because “Young people are language innovators,” says Christian Ilbury, a linguist at the University of Edinburgh. For decades youngsters have created words to distinguish themselves from adults. On social media such neologisms find a big audience. Mr Ilbury describes this as “linguistic identity work”; parents have long called it attention-seeking.
The platform brings together fan groups and communities, from #kpopfans (people who like Korean pop music) to #booktokers (people who love reading). These groups create their own slang, says Adam Aleksic, a linguist and influencer. Some of it leaks into the mainstream. Other slang comes from specific groups: black people have innovated and spread hundreds of English words over the years, from “cool” to “tea” (gossip). Journalists and screenwriters popularise such words; now TikTokers do, too.
*For help in understanding the language and online mannerisms of TikTok and GenZ, I’m grateful to my daughter, Daisy Thorne Mrak*
Teen talk continues to baffle older cohorts, but as autumn approaches the vibes shift – and Tiktok identities evolve…
In mid-August I talked to Mary McCarthy about the ever-changing patterns of youth language, and, with her kind permission, Mary’s article for the Irish Independent follows…
No cap, sigma and rizz? You’ll need more than Google Translate for teen talk now
Parents are supposed to be bemused by the slang words their children use, but the new summer vocab in our house has me totally flummoxed. This is particularly so with the younger two lads – eight and 11 – who walk around saying nonsense words like “sigma”, “no cap” “Skibidi Toilet” and “gyat” all the time.
I don’t mind them having in-jokes, and it’s nice to see them falling around laughing – I’ll take that over sullen moods any day. But what are they laughing about?
Are they being kind? I can see the pleasure of getting the giggles over absurd stuff. I used to have this thing with a school friend where we would say repeatedly “The dog is dead” in a Northern Ireland accent – no idea why. But there is so much coming at them now online. How can I know they won’t soak up the wrong messages? The Andrew Tate alpha-male rubbish, for example.
This week I hired my Gen Z 16-year-old to help me decode what his brothers were saying, and he pocketed his €5 before unhelpfully telling me that “it’s just little kids saying random, mental stuff”.
“It’s the internet, it’s TikTok language,” he said. But they don’t have TikTok, I reminded him. YouTube shorts are the same and they have a lot of that, he told me darkly.
So I asked the lads themselves, and they were fairly keen to enlighten me, which was reassuring. “No cap” means no lying, “sigma” just means cool (no Andrew Tate alpha-male link, thank goodness) and rizz is “charisma”.
My 11-year-old elaborated. “So, this would be a chat-up line like, ‘Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ten I see’.” I’m unsure what to say. They refused to explain “gyat”, so I looked it up later.
It mostly seems fine. They’re getting it from pals and YouTube shorts, which I will limit more now. But what I’m most baffled about is the Skibidi Toilet YouTube show, and why they call everything Skibidi for no reason.
The show has amassed over 65 billion views over the last year, and I can’t see any pull factor. It’s about toilets with human heads engaged in a war with people who have CCTV cameras for heads, all set in a dystopian landscape. Apparently, there will be a TV show and a movie. I had a headache watching it after 30 seconds.
Youth slang can spread very quickly these days via online platforms and messaging
It’s everywhere. We were on holiday in Kerry a few weeks ago and had a few hours to kill in Kenmare, so we visited the Kenmare Stone Circle, which was erected some time between 2000 and 500 BC. If you clip a wish at the Hawthorn Fairy Tree, it comes true. That’s according to the man working there, who handed us a piece of paper and a pen.
Being my nosy self, I immediately started reading other people’s wishes, and among the pleas for health, happiness and planning permission there were lots of Skibidi.
“Sigma, sigma on the wall, who is the Skibiest of them all?” one card read.
“Desidere che i cani diventine Skibidy Toilet,” read another, which Google translate told me was “Wish that dogs become Skibidy toilets” in Italian. So it’s not just my children larking around. I’m sure it’s all just a silly phase, perhaps the same as my own “the dog is dead”.
Tony Thorne, director of the Slang and New Language Archive at King’s College London, said young people have always created their own language to keep outsiders like parents and teachers out. It just happens that there’s more around today.
“This language innovation, as linguists call it, used to take place in private spaces and only sometimes spread further – if, for example, the language was used in music or movies or TV comedies,” he said.
“Youth slang can spread very quickly these days via online platforms and messaging and so can become global. Terms often coined in the US rapidly move into the Anglosphere. We see that in the huge network of English speakers who converse excitedly in ‘mid-Atlantic’ accents.”
Thorne recommends the guide to teenage slang on the Gabb.com website. I soon discovered that “gyat” is a way to express admiration, usually for a woman’s backside. So I nipped that one in the bud.
It is a habit for parents and the older generation to laugh at teenagers for speaking in a frivolous way
Once you start researching the origins of these words, it gets interesting. According to a recent Forbes article on how Gen Z language is changing the workplace, to “slay” – which is something my 13-year-old daughter says, as in “You slayed that lasagne, Mammy” – means “high praise” and originated in black and LGBTQ+ communities before gaining popularity on TikTok.
I can’t remember using much slang as a teen, apart from the many violent descriptions we had for being drunk, among them flutered, slaughtered, battered and trollied.
My cousin would visit from Canada, and she loved hearing those terms. Today, though, there’s no difference between what a 15-year-old in Dublin and a 15-year-old in Toronto is exposed to, and they’re the more creative for this. After all, the way we learn to speak is from listening to other people, so we probably don’t really need to worry much about the slang.
Kevin Barry, former professor of English at the University of Galway, said that while adults can see it as foolish, there’s a wisdom to the newly minted words and phrases.
“It is a habit for parents and the older generation to laugh at teenagers for speaking in a frivolous way – to the adults it makes no sense. What they are seeing is the frontier of language change, which is a creative Wild West,” he said.
There’s no point trying to keep up. New slang will be coined as fast as I learn. We can’t police it. The only thing to do is role-model IRL (in real life) what it is to be a nice person. To not shout, to be kind, to make time for the children. To let them know you have high expectations for their behaviour by having high expectations for your own – no cap.
The dominance of memes and viral posts from the USA celebrating a brat summer was challenged in late August by a TikTok injunction to ‘be demure and mindful‘ in all one’s actions and representations. Alternative and mainstream media jumped quickly aboard the accelerating bandwagon – and Ellie Bramley of the Guardian asked me to comment…
‘Demure‘ is a seemingly prim and dated adjective, used recently only by rueful babyboomers and tabloid journalists, for whom it is code for ‘not completely undressed’ when describing female celebrities attending film festivals, tottering along red carpets and catwalks. In drag queen and ‘ballroom LGBT‘ circles, though, it has long featured as a self-mocking keyword when urging the outrageous, usually ironically and teasingly, to behave with modesty and decorum. It is in this spirit that ‘fierce divas’ and other influencers have relaunched the term, along with ‘mindful‘ in its older sense (before the advent of self-seeking ‘mindfulness’) of considerate, respectful and cautious. The Guardian piece is here…
It’s very easy to dismiss GenZ and TikTok fads as shallow, ephemeral provocations, unworthy of the attention of rational adults. Easy, too, to deride aged babyboomers like me who record them and attempt to analyse the thinking behind them. But as Ellie herself remarked, a keyword like ‘demure’, inasfar as it isn’t just an absurdist gesture, can not only signify a genuine shift in self-awareness on the part of a few influential online individuals, but can prompt reflection and even changes in behaviour among a much larger segment of the population.
With that in mind, from Laura Pitcher, here’s Dazed‘s perceptive take on the word of the moment…
It’s my responsibility, despite my very advanced age and despite the linguistic distractions from war crimes abroad and political meltdown at home, to try to keep track of the latest slang. For some time Gen Z, the population group born between 1997 and 2010, has been torchbearer for the zeitgeist, via TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, promoting such novelties as influencer-talk and its accelerated succession of fads and looks known as aesthetics or vibes (search this site with those keywords for more on all of these).
Now, in early May, help arrives in the form of a diatribe by 21 year-old LA-based singer-songwriter Allegra Miles, calling out aging millennials for their use of dated terminology and urging them to update themselves with Gen Z’s newest catchphrases and slogans. Allegra’s translations attracted the attention of the mainstream media in Australia and the UK and you can read them here…
But Allegra’s generation are no longer the youngest on the block, and I’m curious as to how Gen Alpha – those born between 2010 and 2024 – will modify existing language and generate their own novelties. Tiktok influencer Nicole Pellegrino comments here…
Unfortunately, attempts by parents and teachers to get to grips with their students’ new ways of expressing themselves are embarrassingly inept, if well-meaning. Witness this glossary of terms, one of several ‘guides’ published this year, that is actually a ragbag of well-worn language items favoured by younger millennials and Gen Z…
I’ll continue, from my distant vantage point, to investigate, but my post is, then, an appeal, to any members of Gen Alpha (or their siblings, classmates, neighbours) who bother with online blogs or antique social media platforms, to send me samples of their favourite expressions. I’ll add these to my databases and write about them in due course.
In fairness, I should also list one of several similar articles published recently, again by the Daily Mail in this case, but whose source (the Curry’s electronic retail group) is perhaps not exactly representative of the age-group it describes…
*For help in understanding the language and online mannerisms of TikTok and GenZ and Gen Alpha, I’m especially grateful to my daughter, Daisy Thorne Mrak*
tony thorne 