Dick Yarbrough

Syndicated columnist

May I have a word with you, please? Actually, two words. Brain rot. You just never know what kind of surprise awaits you when you check out this space, do you? I have the feeling brain rot wasn’t on your radar. Mine either, until I read that the swells who run the Oxford English Dictionary have chosen it as their word of the year for 2024. I think we can all agree that brain rot is two words. I can only assume the swells think our brains are already so decomposed, we wouldn’t notice the difference.

To explain – and this one needs a bit of explanation – the lexicographers at Oxford pick a word of the year every year for reasons that escape me and this year the word for 2024 is brain rot. They arrived at their conclusion, they say, after a public vote in which more than 37,000 people named it their top choice. Obviously, they didn’t ask me.

I would have said it was a stupid choice, whether one or two words.

Brain rot beat out several other contenders for 2024, including slop. What a shame. Slop would have made a good word of the year and would have given hogs some well-deserved attention. It’s not easy being porcine.

So, what is brain rot?

Oxford defines the term as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” Hopefully, they aren’t talking about this column. I work very hard to bring you material to consume that is not trivial and at the same time very challenging. If I thought something I said was rotting your brain, I could never forgive myself.

Not to let the Oxford crowd get all the attention, Dictionary.com came up with its own word of the year: Demure. I like slop a lot better.

They justify their choice by saying “demure experienced a meteoric rise in usage in 2024. This sharp rise is mainly attributed to TikToker Jools Lebron’s popularization of the phrase ‘very demure, very mindful’ in a series of videos posted to the platform in early August.”

I have no idea what they are talking about or who Jools Lebron is. I am very mindful I need to get out more.

Meanwhile, Cambridge University, which regularly waxes Oxford in rugby and rowing, also has a word of the year: Manifest, meaning “to use specific practices to focus your mind on something you want, to try to make it become a reality.” They claim the word manifest was looked up almost 130,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary website, making it one of the most viewed words of 2024. It wouldn’t surprise me of it was that crowd from Oxford trying to manifest how to beat Cambridge at rugby and rowing.

So, why am I risking serious brain rot talking about this stuff with you?

It is because I know you have high expectations of me and are wondering why I haven’t given you some words of the year of your own on to toss around at the next church social or cocktail party. I admit I have been derelict in my duty.

Therefore, I contacted my own personal lexicographers, Barney Funk and Porter Wagnalls, for some help. They always seem to be glad to hear from me. The past few years have not been good ones for Funk and Wagnalls.

Who wants to hear about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 when you’ve got Jools Lebron being demure on Tik Tok?

After an extensive research, they suggested I consider as a word of the year, “hiyall,” meaning “Hello. How are you?

Welcome South. Just don’t make fun of how we talk or you can go back where it snows 10 months a year and all your buildings are rusted.” Another candidate for word of the year?

Okefenokee, a word of the year for this year and next year, too. It means Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals needs to drill for toothpaste whitener somewhere other than in our beloved Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge swamp. Maybe downtown Birmingham? And take our wimpy politicians with you.

Coming up with words of the year is just one of the ways I try to serve you although I suspect you would just as soon see me put commas where they belong and leave the fancy stuff to the swells, lest I get all demure and manifest brain rot.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough. com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.