December 23rd, 2024Just sayin’…
By Donna Kelly
As a journo of some years, let’s say 40, I have a love for words. I also like that language is always evolving. So it is always interesting to hear what the word of the year is, especially from the Australian Macquarie Dictionary.
Drum roll please. The Word of the Year for 2024 is ‘enshittification’.
The committee said the noun described the “gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking”.
They said it was a “very basic Anglo-Saxon term wrapped in affixes which elevate it to being almost formal; almost respectable. This word captures what many of us feel is happening to the world and to so many aspects of our lives at the moment”.
I like it. And so did many others, as it also won the People’s Choice Word of the Year. For only the third time since the awards started in 2006. And I agree that while it would be easy to say the world is going to shit, using the term enshittification almost sounds polite.
Committee Honourable Mentions included the right to disconnect, another noun, which is a law that grants employees the right to not work or be contacted about work during non-work hours. I must mention that one to Kyle.
The waking me at 3am with a query like “did you put that final advert in?” is getting ridiculous. Then there is rawdogging. At first I thought this was something rude but it means the act of undertaking a long-haul flight with no electronic entertainment, devices or reading material, as in film, music, games, laptops, books, etc.
Hmmm. When we went to America we did a long-haul flight but maybe a sky couch is not really rawdogging.
The People’s Choice first Honourable Mention was brainrot, which it seems many people have these days, and means being on a social media platform for an extended duration causing diminished mental capacity.
Second was social battery, which I think I get, and means a supposed energy reserve someone has for engaging in social interactions, the reserve being depleted or stimulated depending on circumstances and an individual’s personality.
The rest of the shortlist went like this:
Fairy porn — a subgenre of fantasy fiction which explores relationships between humans and supernatural characters. Incidentaloma — a tumour which is unexpectedly discovered while undergoing a physical examination or surgery for an unrelated procedure.
Looksmaxxing — the act of improving one’s physical attractiveness as much as possible, especially as undertaken by young men.
Kup murri — an earth oven for pit cooking in the traditional Torres Strait Islander style.
Overtourism — a situation in which too many people are visiting a tourist destination, causing damage and degradation, and adversely affecting local residents.
Q-day — a theoretical point in time at which quantum computers will become large-scale enough to enable the decryption of public key encryption algorithms.
Pig butchering — a type of fraud in which a scammer portrays themselves as a friend, romantic interest or financial adviser, in order to gain the trust of their victim.
Rent bidding — the practice of a prospective renter offering a higher price than that advertised in the hope that their rental application will be accepted over others.
Sigma — a person who is well regarded as being exceptional in some way.
Skibidi — a nonsense word used to mean any of various things depending on context, but often ‘cool’ or ‘excellent’.
Spoon bowl — a match between the two lowest teams in a competition to determine which finishes the season at the bottom of the table.
Oh, one last one. Over at the Australian National Dictionary Centre, they picked Colesworth as their Word of the Year. Just one question. Are you getting your Colesworth? Just sayin’…
