"Rizz": Oxford Word of the Year 2023
The Oxford Dictionary picks its WotY based on a word or phrase that has become important or popular during that year. They look at how often people use the word, where they use it (like in books or on social media), and how much it reflects the main ideas, ethos, or feelings of that time. It's like a way of capturing what's happening in the world through the words people use. But Oxford's WotY is not just about selecting a trendy word. Rather, it reflects the changes happening in society and the language evolution. In more detail, the selection process involves gathering evidence from Oxford's extensive language research program, including the Oxford Corpus, which collects around 150 million words of current English from web-based publications each month. The candidates for the WoTY are drawn from this evidence, and dictionary editors also flag notable words for consideration throughout the year and use other sources of data to identify contenders. The final selection is made by the Oxford Languages team based on all the information available to them. However, in 2023, the Oxford Dictionary decided to break that tradition. Accordingly, it followed a more interactive approach by involving the public in the selection process. Following the success of the previous year, when over 340,000 people voted and 'goblin mode' won with 93% of the vote, they opened a shortlist of eight words for a head-to-head public vote. By receiving over 32,000 votes and through the vote of a team of language experts, "rizz" became this year's word.
But what are the other 7 words that could have been WotY 2023?
