J02

It's time. The snow is lingering, stores are playing Christmas music ad nauseam, and what's become one of my favourite yearly phenomena has happened: the major dictionaries have picked their words of the year. Understandably, the terms selected usually reflect goings-on in the larger culture (as defined by a worldview dominated by the United States, which is its own bucket of worms). Not so understandably, they almost always draw criticism.

This year, we've got a few good ones: Oxford University Press went with "rage bait"; Dictionary.com chose "67"; and Cambridge highlighted "parasocial".

Especially when dictionaries formally spotlight words, people can look at more recent inductions to the English language and say "That doesn't seem right." That little voice in the back of the head that sounds like your fifth-grade English teacher insists that "67" isn't a word, actually, and therefore doesn't belong in the dictionary.

What the dictionaries are doing, though, is identifying and cataloguing terms that English speakers introduce to the language naturally. Linguistically, they're taking a descriptive approach to English.

A language is considered to be "alive" when a couple conditions are met. One, it needs to have at least one (preferably many) native speaker. Two, the native speakers must use the language to communicate ideas (rather than, say, to facilitate religious ceremonies, à la Latin). When these conditions are no longer met, the language is considered "dead".

Living languages naturally change over time to suit the needs of their speakers. You probably won't even notice it until you look back and realize that a term you use daily wasn't widespread—or maybe didn't even exist—when you were a child. (For me, that's "ghosting", which apparently became A Thing in the mid-2010s. The more you know. 🌈)

We live in a world so deeply connected that new words rise and fall like sand dunes: some build up so much use over time that they stay relevant, while others are blown away.

The process of language change is actually really cool if you're interested.

When I was younger, I didn't really have the words to describe how I was experiencing the world. I had no interest in sex, but as a teenager felt convinced that it was an important part of Becoming An Adult. I pushed myself into it in a way that wasn't natural for me—and probably felt like shit for my partner. (Sorry, C!) Later, when I first stumbled across the concept of asexuality, it just clicked. All of a sudden, I had a word that encompassed that facet of my life. I knew that others were experiencing the same thing; that I wasn't broken or odd.

All this is to say that new words being introduced and recorded is important. The gradual process of change shows us that our language is still alive, and it shows how we're responding to the world around us. (Sure, 67 is a little silly, but we could use some levity in the absolute dogshit year we've had.) We might not use all the words in our lexicon—they might go the way of "YOLO" and "Gangnam style", both of which peaked in 2012—but their existence proves that we're still finding ways of communicating with each other.

In a year (decade?) where so many people are talking at cross purposes, that's kinda comforting, isn't it? I'm choosing to see it that way.