Did 2023 find you looking for some rizz while stopping for a Swiftie? Perhaps you’ve given yourself a prompt to be a little more authentic?
For those picturing cadging a Rizla for a roll-up cig while downing a quick drink in the pub, or giving yourself a nudge to be more you, that’s so yesterday.
The endless somersaulting of our language has shifted the meaning of both those sentences dramatically, for today’s ‘rizz’ has left smoking paraphernalia for dust and is embracing instead something we all want a little more of — charisma.
A Swiftie, meanwhile, is no longer a quick pint down the pub; today’s version is a die-hard member of the vast fandom that exists for singer Taylor Swift.
A prompt is more likely to be something we give to ChatGPT and ‘authentic’ — being your true self — has suddenly become a pop culture superpower. Say hello to the words of the year for 2023.
Did 2023 find you looking for some rizz while stopping for a Swiftie? Perhaps you’ve given yourself a prompt to be a little more authentic?
For those picturing cadging a Rizla for a roll-up cig while downing a quick drink in the pub, or giving yourself a nudge to be more you, that’s so yesterday
I have always relished the time when dictionary publishers choose their standout word of the year. They can range from the unexpected (last year’s ‘goblin mode’ springs to mind: a let-it-all-hang-out approach to life) to the serious (‘vax’ in 2021, or ‘credit crunch’ from 2008), with a few light touches in between (‘bovvered’ made it to top spot in 2006 and a meerkatty ‘simples’ in 2009).
All this may seem like a silly parlour game for lexicographers, but words can bottle history as well as any picture and each era’s new coinages speak volumes about the preoccupations of those living through it.
Take the 1920s, a time of linguistic exuberance after the end of World War I which gave us expressions of excellence such as ‘the bee’s knees’ and ‘the cat’s whiskers’ (as well as forgotten gems like ‘the kipper’s knickers’ and ‘the elephant’s adenoids’). This period also saw the emergence of ‘boogie-woogie’, ‘bright young thing’, ‘Charleston’, ‘demob’, ‘hemline’, ‘perm’ and ‘nail varnish’. All put together, you get a vivid collage of the time.
Leap forward to the 1940s and the picture is clouded once again by war and deprivation. Here we find the first records of ‘blitz’, ‘Molotov cocktail’, ‘Big Brother’, ‘nylons’ (much sought after on the black market) and ‘gulag’.
Lest we think life was all darkness, though, this decade also saw the entrance of the Wonderbra, garden gnome, DNA and the bikini (although this was named after the atomic bomb tests on the Bikini Atoll; the two-piece swimsuit was thought to have a similarly explosive effect.)
‘Cool’, the adjective of approval that almost any generation can still use today, also came into its own during the jazz era of the 1940s. Towards the end of the 20th century, life and language looked very different.
We had ‘bling’, for starters, as well as ‘alcopop’, ‘blog’, ‘Botox’, ‘dotcom’, ‘Google’, ‘home page’, ‘text message’, ‘hotdesking’ and ‘having it large’.
Which brings us to this year. If the Oxford Dictionary’s shortlist is anything to go by, dating was uppermost in our minds in 2023, as we continued to re-evaluate our relationships after the make-or-break years of the pandemic.
Or you may be in a ‘situationship’ — a relationship that is not yet committed. Hopefully it will blossom into something firmer, particularly given enough ‘rizz’ (stock image)
Of all the words on this year’s shortlist, ‘rizz’ was the one that really captured the imagination. A shortening of ‘charisma’, it describes that certain charm or je ne sais quoi that makes a person stand out. Such is the word’s success, particularly online, that it has morphed into a verb, so you can now ‘rizz someone up’ with a charm offensive, or wear ‘rizz-coloured glasses’ if you prioritise this form of sex appeal above all others (stock image)
If you hadn’t already spotted a ‘beige flag’ in a potential suitor, you probably will now.
This is a quirky characteristic in a love interest which isn’t a deal-breaker but nothing to boast of, either. Perhaps they belt out TV theme tunes in the shower or avoid stepping on cracks in the pavement — you don’t exactly appreciate it, but nor does it inspire the famous ‘ick’.
Or you may be in a ‘situationship’ — a relationship that is not yet committed. Hopefully it will blossom into something firmer, particularly given enough ‘rizz’.
Of all the words on this year’s shortlist, ‘rizz’ was the one that really captured the imagination. A shortening of ‘charisma’, it describes that certain charm or je ne sais quoi that makes a person stand out. Such is the word’s success, particularly online, that it has morphed into a verb, so you can now ‘rizz someone up’ with a charm offensive, or wear ‘rizz-coloured glasses’ if you prioritise this form of sex appeal above all others.
Possibly my favourite pick from Oxford’s 2023 selection was ‘parasocial’, a word that describes the false sense of intimacy many of us tend to feel towards celebrities.
As we watch the famous play out their lives on our screens, we have a sense that we ‘know’ them, even feel a sense of ownership. The word is far from new, nor does it exactly trip off the tongue, but it fills a significant gap in our language as we fall further under the spell of life’s influencers.
From sport, we had ‘Bazball’. Used to describe a style of play that focuses on enjoyment and a lack of fear, its use soon extended beyond cricket to embrace the idea of deviating from the normal rules and simply having fun.
‘Nepo baby’ also made an entrance. Short for ‘nepotism baby’, this snarling invention describes the child of a celebrity who finds their way into the same career as their parents thanks to already having a foot in the door.
Bringing up the rear were ‘UPF’, short for the ultra-processed food that has become the new nutritional nemesis (taking the baton from trans fats and MSG) and ‘debanking’, the decision by a financial institution to deprive an individual of their banking facilities because they no longer suit its ethical or political values.
Had the bank been powered by intelligence of the artificial kind, Farage might have accused Coutts of ‘hallucinating’, for these days the verb refers to the ability of AI to perceive patterns in data that don’t exist and provide false information as a result (stock image)
The word was shoved into a glaring spotlight thanks to the position taken by Coutts that Nigel Farage was the wrong kind of celebrity and they had to get him out of there.
Had the bank been powered by intelligence of the artificial kind, Farage might have accused Coutts of ‘hallucinating’, for these days the verb refers to the ability of AI to perceive patterns in data that don’t exist and provide false information as a result.
So, what of the words of 2024? Predicting the future of language can be a mug’s game, but some themes seem set to remain. One will surely be the wobbly relationship between truth and lies, real news and fake.
As Donald Trump gears up for re-election, we may see more of his word confections taking a spin around social media. Few of us have forgotten ‘covfefe’, his apparently mistyped word for ‘coverage’ which has taken on a life of its own and become a synonym for everything from fake news to coffee.
As he has always told us: ‘I have words, I have the best words.’
AI, of course, will become a bigger feature in our lives. Technology has always spawned different ways of speaking, so new vocabulary and a new grammar may well be on the horizon next year, and — excitingly but also rather terrifyingly — they may not be human in origin.
We are also likely to hear more of ‘alignment’, a buzzword which, like ‘authentic’, has crept into every aspect of our lives. Countries, companies and couples all strive to align themselves with the right ‘core values’ (there’s another).
Whatever 2024 brings, it’s worth remembering that the latest words are rarely inventions that no one has seen the like of before.
This romantic notion of how language evolves crumbles when you know that only one per cent of all new coinages are spangly apparitions from the ether. The vast majority are riffs or mashups of existing words: a process of repurposing that has played out since English began.
This means that, linguistically at least, there is nothing to fear. In fact, when it comes to new words, there is everything to play for. They are our shop window, the face of English that we love to debate, laugh at and moan about.
And they tell us where we’re at: you only have to hear ‘flapper’, ‘bebop’, ‘hula hoop’, ‘ladette’ or ‘glasnost’ to instantly picture the time they were born in.
In a hundred years, speakers of the future will be able to look back at this century and pinpoint exactly what was going on through the prism of its words.
It’s on us to make those words worthwhile. Forget alignment, let’s rizz things up while we have the chance.
- Interesting Stories About Curious Words, by Susie Dent (John Murray Press, £14.99). © Susie Dent 2023. To order a copy for £13.49 (offer valid to 30/12/23; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.