American Dialect Society reveals 2024 words of the year

KENNEDY FELTON:  Are you rawdogging that three-hour flight? 

Seen anyone post online that they’ve been “Luigi-pilled” about the healthcare system?

How about the gasp you *gusped* when you learned that phrase was the American Dialect Society’s pick for most creative word of the year for 2024?

The group of hundreds of linguistics scholars voted on words or phrases that defined 2024 in a range of different categories, including the informal, political and digital words of the year, the most creative word of the year, and the “most fun while it lasted” category for short-lived but impactful trends.

“Rawdogging,” the term for doing an activity without the usual preparation, like taking a long flight without looking at any entertainment, won for both Word of the Year and “informal word of the year.”

Most of the nominees had ties to a big moment or cultural trend in the year gone by.

The Luigi prefix, a reference to Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, won “political word of the year.” It gained traction in December as a subset of Americans expressed their sympathy with Mangione’s apparent cause of calling out common health insurance industry practices.

And “brat,” a nod to singer Charli XCX’s album of the same name referring to the confident, hedonistic attitude of her music and lyrics, as winner for “most fun while it lasted.”

The term also had a political moment when TikTok memes created a crossover between Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and songs off the Brat album.

Other winners included lock in, meaning to deeply focus, as most useful; unserious as most likely to succeed; and “brainrot” won digital word of the year, as the term became popular for describing both low-value media and its effects on consumers. 

For Straight Arrow News, I’m Kennedy Felton.

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