S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show. A year can be remembered in many different ways. Words are one of them will explore the ones that captured 2025. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. It's almost the end of 2025 , which means it is a great time to reflect back on the year behind us. One way to do that is through the biggest words of 2025. Every December , dictionaries like Merriam-Webster and Oxford publish lists of words that and expressions reflecting the year. And we have plenty to talk about this year. From slop to rage , bait , gerrymander , and even six seven. I'm joined by someone who knows a thing or two about words Martha Barnette. She's co-host of the call and radio show Away With Words and author of friends with words Adventures in Language Land. Martha , welcome back to Midday edition.
S2: Hey , Jade , it's great to be with you again.
S1: Always great to talk to you. So you know you are the expert here.
S3: You know what's everybody talking about ? What's everybody thinking about ? And what really sums up the year that we've just about completed ? And it doesn't necessarily have to be a single word. It can be a unit of meaning. Um , and the big one this year is the first one you mentioned. Slop.
S1: Well , tell me about that. You know , because that is the top word commonly referred to as AI slop.
S3: At least five of them have said the word of the year is slop , because there is so much low quality content flooding our feeds. And as you said , it has to do with AI and just this digital clutter , this unwanted , shoddy AI content that you just can't escape when you fire up your phone or fire up your computer , whether you're doing a search online and maybe it gives you a wrong information or images coming at you. And the word slop itself , I think is pretty fantastic , because it's got this great history of going back to the 15th century , when slop meant a mud hole or a puddle , and then later on it became applied to semi liquid food or something that you might , uh , feed to somebody who's convalescing , or you might go out and slop the hogs. And then in the 19th century , slop also applied to sentimental , sentimental writing. And it was just three years ago in online tech circles that people started applying it to this kind of of low quality but high quantity , uh , garbage , a lot of which is produced with artificial intelligence. And so that was just three years ago that , you know , tech insiders were using that word. And then it sort of jumped into the mainstream , particularly last year , and with good reason , because J. Do you know what I'm talking about ? I mean , these creepy , surreal images or or maybe a video of a deceased celebrity and you click on it because you're confused or , you know , the Pope dressed in a big white puffer jacket. He didn't.
S4: He didn't wear that.
S3: Or do.
S4:
S3: But but it's not real. It's it's surreal. And then words to , you know , these long posts on Facebook that just seem to come out of nowhere or , you know , as an author , I'm noticing that a lot of people are going online and making knockoffs of real books. You know , they just use AI. And so , I mean , if I sound like I'm complaining about slap , I guess I.
S4: Am because it's it's out there.
S3: It's out there and it's in our faces all the time. But as a word , it's actually pretty great because it lends itself to a lot of adaptation , which is something that that will make a word stick around and just not be sort of a flash in the pan kind of , of slang , because I've seen people talking about hiring slop. Mhm.
S4: Mhm.
S3: Which is that's not when you hire somebody who's slop , but it's when you know somebody's going through resumes and they can tell that all these resumes are AI generated. You know people are trying to stand out , but they're actually just looking like like it was generated by AI or people have talked about work. Slop is another variation on the term that's a , you know , work that's produced to to make your boss look like you're working or make , uh , produce to satisfy process or appearances rather than to create real value. And then I'll just give you a couple more examples. Slop maganda is a term that's floating around now , you know , propaganda that's produced by slop , slop rations , slop and and slop mists are apparently people who are actually optimistic about all this stuff that , that most of us find. well , the CEO of of Merriam-Webster. Actually , when they named slop their word of the year , he said that that slop is something that people have found fascinating , annoying and a little bit ridiculous. And I.
S4: Think that.
S3: Really sums it. Up.
S1: Up. That does. And I'll be honest , I'll tell you , I hadn't heard of A.I. slop , but the way you just broke it down , that that does really capture a lot of what we see online here and beyond. Um , but also online , um , is , is at least leads us to the next word , which is rage bait.
S3: The people who produced the Oxford English Dictionary and rage bait is content that specifically designed to provoke anger for the sake of engagement , for the sake of of traffic. You know , you go online and , you know , trolls will do this in social media. They'll go and produce rage baits so that that people get angry about what the person has posted and it just increases their their reactions online and that games the algorithm so they get more , uh , more distribution. And it's just a really annoying other thing. Hmm.
S4: Hmm. Wow.
S1: Wow. Well , okay , so another word I want to talk about that made Merriam-Webster's list is gerrymander. Been in the dictionary a long time. This was , though , a highly searched term throughout 2025 , especially around the prompt 50 effort here in California. But I'm wondering if you can tell us the origin story of that word gerrymander.
S3: Yeah , I'm glad you asked about that one , because it's one of those word origins that's actually very clear. It's easy to research. And yeah , gerrymander is a term that we've heard a bunch lately when people are talking about redistricting , redistricting and drawing the lines of electoral districts differently to advantage one party or the other , and gerrymander actually goes back to the early 1800s , 1812 , actually , because the governor of Massachusetts then was a guy named Elbridge Gerry Gerry , Elbridge Gerry , and he was one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. And later he went on to be James Madison's vice president. But while he was governor of Massachusetts in 1812 , his party redrew a state senate district into a shape that was just so outrageous. You know , they were they were trying to.
S4: Get all the.
S3: Votes they could. And so this , this shape of this district was so ridiculous that somebody compared it to the shape of a salamander , you know , which is not a very orderly looking , uh , district , but somebody compared it to the shape of a salamander. And then a political cartoonist decided that actually that was a Gerry , a gerrymander. He called it a gerrymander. People were first originally calling it a Gary Mander. But , you know , people saw that word in print in like , geranium and geometry and geography. People just figured that it started with a J sound instead. So it actually goes back to the name of a Massachusetts governor whose party redrew a district into a really ridiculous shape. Interesting.
S1: Interesting. Well , another phrase is touch grass. That that one made the list. What does that mean for those who don't know ? Yeah.
S3: Touch grass is an expression that I really appreciate , because I need to train myself to push away from the computer and go outside and touch grass. I mean , it's in its most literal sense. It means get outside , you know , close. Close your computer. Uh , shut your phone off. Go outside and touch grass. And this , uh , arose in the gaming community , um , when people were kind of teasing each other about that and touch grass for a while could mean , you know , get real. Um , and it was it was a little bit derogatory. Hey. Touch grass. You know , get real. But , um , it's since acquired this sense of , you know , shutting down , going out. Going out in nature. It kind of kind of reminds me of the Japanese term Shinran yoku , which which literally means forest bath. And so when I'm trying to remind myself to , to go out and touch grass , I tell myself , you know , I need to need to go out and take a forest bath. It's good for you , especially in the face of so much slop. Exactly.
S1: Exactly. I was going to say , this is what will keep you away from slop and rage , babe.
S3: So it's.
S1: Just grass. All right. well , okay. It's time to embarrass the kids a little. So we have to talk about six , seven , uh , the big gen alpha term of 2025. Dictionary.com actually grounded their top word of this year. And it seems that nobody quite knows what six seven means. And yet we're hearing it and seeing it everywhere. My five year old came home saying it.
S3:
S1: The one hand up , one hand down thing and then chuckled and walked away when I asked her what it meant. Yeah. Aha.
S3: Aha. Yeah , that's the whole idea , right ? Uh , to outsmart the adults. But , um. Yeah , six , seven really , really took off among kids. And some people thought it was a little bit weird that Dictionary.com would name it the word of the year because it just , you know , just popped up so quickly. And and it's awfully silly. And we're not totally sure of the , of exactly how it managed to take off , but it apparently goes back to a song called doot doot 67 , which is by a musical artist named Skrillex. And then it was reinforced by these viral TikToks featuring basketball players , and something or other involving the basketball players had to do with 6 or 7. And then I don't know if you've seen this video on online , but but there's a video that you can find that's just a few seconds of a young boy who will forever no be known as the six seven kid because he's at a basketball game and he gets really excited and he says six seven , and he looks kind of silly and he's making these weird hand motions. And what happened was that somehow this took off among kids. And pretty soon teachers , you know , their classrooms were utterly disrupted. If the numbers six seven came up and and some teachers were trading tips online about how to get their students to stop saying six seven , or maybe for a treat , they would give a math test where all the answers were 67. And and you know , when that happens , when teachers and , you know , adults start to pick up on this stuff , then the term becomes uncool. So I don't know if your daughter still uses it or not. True.
S1: True.
S3: Well , it's so true. Well , well , I tell you , Jade , what you got to listen for next is 41 because apparently six seven has been replaced by 41 , sometimes 41. And I think that. So watch for that. And uh , and uh , yeah , sometimes there's a little hand motion with that. But apparently that goes back to some song by Bizzy Boy. Um , that's called 41 song. So I'm just I'm Lizzy boy.
S1: All right.
S3: Lizzy boy.
S1: Yeah , I guess , and certainly I was talking about it on the radio. Totally makes it uncool now. So. Exactly.
S3: Exactly. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Exactly.
S3: Exactly. So we just , I mean , I mean , who says skip toilet anymore , right ? I mean , that's that's kind of over. I think if I'm saying it. Yeah , if I'm saying it , it's it's way over.
S1: Oh my gosh. All right. Well okay. So we talked about some of these newer words grabbing our attention this year.
S3: You know , so much of that is uncertain. Um , and so , you know , as as we were talking about , there's so much that has to do with that. Um , let's see , there's well , there's , ah , a farming. That's not exactly it , but that's sort of you can I guess you could use artificial intelligence to to , uh , manufacture charisma or improve your vibe. That's called aura farming online , where you where you try to make yourself sound cooler. Um , most of it , as I said , has to do with with these , uh , social interactions. Yeah. Online. Wow.
S1: Wow.
S3: Uh , it was the word , uh , selected by the Cambridge dictionary. And that is the word parasocial and parasocial. It's again , it has. It often has to do with with life. Online. Parasocial describes one sided connections that form between fans and their celebrity and the celebrities they really love or or with influencers. You know , there are so many people whom I follow online that , you know , I feel like I know them better than I really do. And and so we have a parasocial relationship. People will talk about having a parasocial relationship with , with Taylor Swift , for example , because they're they're so into Taylor Swift. Oh , and another term , again , having to do with artificial intelligence is clunkers. Okay.
S1: Okay. Please explain. Okay.
S3: Okay. Well , this clunkers is is sort of a derisive term for robots or , uh , you know , these these , uh , these chat ChatGPT and other , um , uh , uh , what do you call them ? Uh , The AI apps that we use. Sometimes people call them clunkers. It's just sort of a derisive term for this other kind of of of , well , it's not really a being , is it ? I hope , but.
S1: We don't know , right ? We don't know what the future holds.
S3: We don't know if the clunkers are going to take over , but I hope not.
S1: We hope not.
S3:
S1: Mhm.
S3: Mhm. Mhm. Well I think that the trend with watching artificial intelligence is going to continue. And one thing to watch for is that , you know , there are all these different organizations and dictionary companies that have sort of jumped on the word of the year bandwagon , but the granddaddy of them all , or the grandmother of them all , is the American Dialect Society. This is an organization of scholars and linguists and independent researchers and people who watch words , and they haven't yet named their word of the year. Their meeting in New Orleans the first week of January. And so everybody should watch for what their word of the year is going to be , because it's often it's often really thought provoking. And they've been at this for 35 years. The other organizations have just kind of jumped on the bandwagon because it's a great way to get engagement and get clicks. So , you know , you throw out your word of the year and yeah , you throw out that content. Yeah. So watch for it'll be the first week of January I believe when they vote on that. And I'm real curious to see what they come up with.
S1: I am too. Well , it's always fascinating to talk with you. I've been speaking with Martha Barnette. She's co-host of the Colin radio show Away With Words and author of friends with Words Adventures in language. Land. Martha. Thank you and happy new year.
S2: Happy New Year to you too , Jade.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
