Half the Answer #60: 2025's Word of the Year

Caitlin and Trent chat with linguistics scholars Savi Namboodiripad and Daniel Midgley on what word most exemplifies 2025. Was it a new coinage? A pre-existing word that gained a new meaning or usage this year? A word that seemed to be on everybody's lips in 2025?

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Resources:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year

"6 7" song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07xpV4ix2K8

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/27/more-than-20-of-videos-shown-to-new-youtube-users-are-ai-slop-study-finds

https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/12/03/and-the-economists-word-of-the-year-for-2025-is

https://www.dictionary.com/articles/word-of-the-year-2025

https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/

https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-dictionary-reveals-word-of-the-year-2025

https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-word-of-the-year-2025-ai-meets-authenticity-as-society-shifts/

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2147118/is-that-grocery-product-really-canadian-or-is-it-maple-washing

"getting sendy" song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYAQEJyqR7E

group 7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/10/27/tiktoks-group-7-meme-explained/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/lore

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/unc

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/chopped

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/huzz

https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-the-performative-male-how-young-men-are-experimenting-with-masculinity-online-268742

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051221126040

https://dailyillini.com/opinions-stories/columns-opinions/culture/2025/10/25/opinion-unmasking-performative-male/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kianbakhtiari/2025/09/28/performative-males-gen-z-irony-and-the-death-of-sincerity/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/us/rapture-tiktok-sept-23.html

Epstein's email simulator https://www.jmail.world/

https://othermeans.io/p/the-glonzo-strategy

https://www.theverge.com/policy/798491/frog-portland-trump-national-guard

https://the-monsters.fandom.com/wiki/The_Monsters

https://lafufu.art/blog/labubu-vs-lafufu

https://www.thelist.com/1817157/what-is-mar-a-lago-face-who-has-tried-the-trend/

https://bsky.app/profile/canadiandictionary.bsky.social/post/3m7tf3jm2fc2c

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oprah-podcast-no-contact-adult-children-parents_n_69389e85e4b0fb6244b0daa8

https://fortune.com/2025/12/29/trump-tariffs-cost-25000-per-month-small-business-importers-center-american-progress/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us/politics/doge-musk-trump-analysis.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-doge-government-spending-2025-b2890243.html

https://www.vox.com/culture/376401/r-word-slur-return-euphemism-treadmill-cycle

https://www.lawdork.com/p/the-kavanaugh-stop-50-days-later

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/30/politics/trump-taco-angry-tariff

https://www.buzzfeed.com/abbyzinman/canadians-elbows-up-explainer

https://pen.org/banned-words-list/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2025/03/15/these-197-terms-may-trigger-reviews-of-your-nih-nsf-grant-proposals/

https://www.dailydot.com/memes/everythings-computer-trump-quote-meme/

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trump-promises-harsher-ice-crackdowns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/27/chatgpt-suicide-openai-raine/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/snap-welfare-queen-ai-memes-1235460824/

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10022/who-coined-the-phrase-rapid-unscheduled-disassembly#10219

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/rapid-unplanned-disassembly-rud

https://becauselanguage.com/131-wotwoty-2025/