Belle Taylor: In your brat era? Or are you manifesting? The 2024 words of the year are here

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas, it’s when the world’s dictionaries reveal their “word of 2024”.

What have we been saying in the past 12 months? In which direction are the English-speaking world’s linguistic winds blowing? Would our great-grandparents understand a single thing we say any more? Have you even heard of the supposed “top word”? Or is it like when you hear the winner of the Triple J Hottest 100 music poll in January and think: ”THIS is the biggest song of the past year? I have never heard of it! Am I out of touch? No . . . it’s the children who are wrong.”

There are actually a few “top” words as each dictionary selects its own winner.

Which word they choose depends largely on where they are based — the slang du jour in Australia may not have made much headway in the US or the UK. Here is a guide to all the major dictionaries’ top words of the year that you can throw into conversation over Christmas lunch to prove you’ve still got it — even if you still think Dom Dolla is a type of prosecco.

Brain rot: The Oxford Dictionary selected this term as its word of the year via public vote. It seems a lot of people looked at the six shortlisted words and thought: “you know what, I DID get dumber this year”. Brain rot refers to spending time mindlessly watching stupid things online: TikTok dances, influencer Instagram feeds, bad takes from wannabe podcasters. It’s a vicious cycle of making dumb people famous and all people dumber. Will there come a point where the Venn diagram becomes a circle and we all reach an equal level of dumb and famous? Is this what Andy Warhol was referring to? Does that even make any sense? My brain hurts, I think it’s rotting.

Brat: Selected by the Collins Dictionary, Brat was the name of Charli XCX’s massive album released in June that spawned an entire movement. In the northern hemisphere it seemed everyone was having a “brat summer”, a carefree celebration of fun and freedom in spite of the world going to hell in a handcart. In Australia if we wanted to be part of the zeitgeist we had to really lean into a brat winter, which is a little harder to do. Wearing your trackies all day, knocking back half a bottle of cab sav on a Tuesday, staying up late watching just one more episode of Bridgerton. To borrow another viral 2024 phrase: “In da clerb (living room) we all fam” (no, really, that is my family. On the couch).

Manifest: The Cambridge Dictionary selected this old-but-new-again phrase as their word of the year. The definition used to be “to show something clearly through words or action”. Now it’s a fancy way of saying you are wishing for something to happen, such as: “I am manifesting a job” or “I am manifesting wealth and success” or “I am manifesting a drop in interest rates” or “I am manifesting a bag of groceries for less than the price of my first car”. So far, I’m not convinced it works.

Enshittification: Thank goodness the greatest word of the year comes from Australia’s own Macquarie Dictionary. Its meaning: “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking”. Basically, all the stuff that leads to brain rot. Altogether a good sign to get off your phone to start the important work of manifesting your brat summer.