Don’t know slang? No worries, check the dictionary
Madeline Fry Schultz
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Our country’s oldest dictionary, Merriam-Webster, added nearly 700 words to its lexicon last month, with words related to developing technology, the environment, and more. No category is as likely to be bewildering for readers over 25 as its contributions from culture (“online and offline”) and slang.
With the help of the dictionary, you can now watch Euphoria, Outer Banks, or any of the other overly dramatic teenage shows produced these days with minimal confusion. The new entries include rizz (“romantic appeal or charm”), simp (“to show excessive devotion to or longing for someone or something”), and mid (“neither very good nor very bad: so-so, meh”).
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But the young aren’t the only ones getting noticed. While the dictionary seems a little too eager to stay relevant with the Generation Z crowd, there are a few words that might have some readers thinking, “It’s about time.”
The nerds now have padawan (“a young person especially when regarded as naive, inexperienced, etc.”), coined years ago by Star Wars creator George Lucas. Millennials get recognition for their slang, which now makes Gen Z cringe: doggo (“dog”), TTYL (“talk to you later”), and girlboss (“an ambitious and successful woman”).
The retirement community gets “bingo card,” as in, “Seeing the word rizz in the dictionary was not on my 2023 bingo card.” And The Simpsons fans get cromulent (“acceptable, satisfactory”), from a 1996 episode of the famously prescient show.
The culture and society entries are not, to say the least, inspiring for our culture’s future. We are now recognizing thirst trap (“a photograph [such as a selfie] or video shared for the purpose of attracting attention or desire”), doomscroll (“to spend excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.”), and edgelord (“someone who makes wildly dark and exaggerated statements [as on an internet forum] with the intent of shocking others”).
At least now we also have prosocial (“intended to help or benefit another person or group”).
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Many of the new Merriam-Webster entries seem bewildering, and the nearly 200-year-old dictionary may have no business turning words such as bussin’ (“extremely good”) and GOATED (“considered to be the greatest of all time”) into legitimate entries. But they are popular words that are certain to send folks who still remember dial-up searching for an explanation.
Plus, for better or for worse, this act of inclusion means these words are already going out of style. Everybody knows nothing becomes uncool faster than slang that escapes from the mouth (or the text bubble) of an older person. No matter how cool a word was before, it always loses its rizz.