For most demographics, the news that Oxford University Press’s word of the year was “rizz” was a frustratingly redundant item of information. Most neologisms – newly invented words – have a fashion half-life so brief that it takes Nasa-grade technology to measure the period in which it’s socially acceptable to use them.
By the time the usage of a new word ascends an age threshold of roughly 17, it’s no longer cool – if we’re still allowed to say “cool” – so that anyone who’s still saying rizz will look like a tragic try-hard. This ridiculousness magnifies relative to age. A 40-year-old who says “rizz” to another 40-year-old will probably have to explain what it means, thus making them both look lame.
Just to get it over with, rizz – derived from charisma – means sexy, alluring and possessed of je ne sais quoi.
Obviously, rizz-ness is in the eye of the beholder, and if misapplied to a person who is merely “cute” (can we please stop saying “cute”?), could make a rizz-attributor look naff (if we’re still meant to say “naff”).
Thankfully, not all neologisms are so fleeting or demographically exclusionary. A few stick around because they’re useful clarifiers. Collins English Dictionary’s words of the year included “debanking” and “greedflation”. These were coined to objectify two nasty new business practices, and may even in time help to shame them from existence.
Still, the more durable neologisms risk suffering grotesque mission-creep from overuse. “Gaslighting”, Merriam-Webster’s 2022 word of the year, has since behaved in the obnoxious manner of that other popular neologism, manspreading.
Dictionaries define gaslighting as “grossly misleading someone to gain an advantage”, the term having been extrapolated from the Hollywood noir classic Gaslight. It grew as a useful way to describe manipulative relationships: bosses mendaciously trying to convince staff the mistakes were their fault, or spouses deliberately mischaracterising events so as cause doubt and undermine self-confidence.
Now, it’s also widely used as a shield against hearing anything we don’t want to hear, and often, it’s the person alleging the gaslighting who’s actually doing it. Any adverse comment, however fairly and constructively addressed, is apt to be met by a charge of “you’re gaslighting me”.
Incompatibility, genuine disagreement, substandard work, poor behaviour – all can be obfuscated by flinging the brow-smiting neologism about. That’s handy chilling-power. No one wants to be called a malign manipulator, so g-wording is a great honesty deterrent.
We urgently need an antidote neologism to fact-check gaslighting, but alas the possibilities – faircalling, kindtruthing – are hopelessly mealy-mouthish.
Another form of neology is the repurposing of words. “Adulting” is a witty example, meaning “behaving like a mature, competent, responsible person”, with the wry inference that this isn’t usually the case.
But these terms, too, can warp stupidly. Exhibit A: “broken”. It used to mean any state between “needing repair” and “kaput”. Now: “The shop sold out of my lipstick. I’m broken!” Anything popularly shared on social media “broke the internet!”
Worse, it’s another cheap brow-smiter. In many novels now, no character is allowed to be fragile, depressed or unsuccessful. They’re broken. This bleakly reductionist term has even become go-to mental health lingo, which is pretty heartless.
What a histrionic, melodramatic way to describe ourselves, especially in this Repair Shop era. It’s increasingly irresponsible to write off an appliance as broken, but nigh on compulsory if a person gets a bit out of sorts. We should go back to being disappointed, overwrought, under-slept or in need of a strong cup of tea – especially given how much “broken” must dismay people suffering genuinely crippling mental-health outages. But they’ll doubtless be resigned. Not even a couple of wars, featuring real human breakage, have yet adulted us against verbal victimhood.
