Brian Lair on WNYC and we'll close today with a peak at the 2025 words of the year.

As I said before the break, as chosen by a few different dictionary publishers. Do you know the word

parasycial or the term rage bait? Do you use the term six, seven, to describe any people or

things or your feelings about them? Those have each been named words of the year, the selection

of which we might acknowledge is no easy feat, considering the sheer

volume of slang output we see on the internet these days, right? So joining us now to go over.

Those three words and more, and the cultural shifts that they represent and that paved the way

for their popularity is Ben Zimmer, linguist, language columnist, and chair of the New Words Committee

of the American Dialect Society. Ben, always great to have you on the show. Welcome back to

WNYC for another year-end word crawl. Hi, Brian. Always great to be on talking to you about the

words of the year. And listeners, do you have a word of the year? Have one that's, you know, very 2025,

212, 433, WNYC, call or text. This can just be a word you've been hearing a lot more this year

for whatever reason. Maybe it's been in the news. Maybe it's from your kids. Maybe it's a word

that defines something specific to your life or a society-wide observation that you've made

212-433, WNYC, 433-9-6-9-2, call or text, or even if you want to weigh in agreeing or

disagreeing with any of the words of the year that these dictionaries have picked.

And Ben, I actually want to start with some breaking news.

I see that Merriam Webster announced their word of the year early this morning, and that word

is slop, and not the kind you find in a pig pen, I assume, right?

No, that's not the kind of slop people are talking about

these days. Yeah, Merriam-Webster just came out with their announcement as they were to the year,

and they define slop as digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity

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