2025's Word of the Year (with Savi Namboodiripad and Daniel Midgley)

January 18
2h 12m

Episode Description

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?


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/

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