A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
OK, Leila, time for the 2024 Oxford Word of the Year.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
OK, what you got?
MARTÍNEZ: Brain rot.
FADEL: OK, but what's the word?
MARTÍNEZ: OK, I know I have a little, but that's the word, the Oxford Word of the Year.
FADEL: OK, sorry, but that's two words.
MARTÍNEZ: Well, thank you, Ms. Obvious. It's a trendy two words. And for years, Oxford's been picking a word that's buzzy or chronically online.
FADEL: OK, my niece always calls herself a brain-rot kid, but I have no idea what she's talking about. What's she talking about, at least according to Oxford?
MARTÍNEZ: All right. It's used to describe those long TikTok binge sessions, you know, when you're sitting on the commode or before you go to bed (laughter)?
FADEL: I obviously never, ever do that.
CASPER GRATHWOHL: Brain rot describes the deterioration of a person's mental state due to overconsumption of a lot of low-quality material and content.
MARTÍNEZ: That's me to a T. That's Casper Grathwohl. He's the president of Oxford Languages, and he's had a hand in picking the word of the year for the last 20 years.
GRATHWOHL: A lot of online communities and social media are driving word trends. And a lot of the users who are driving those trends, a lot of the creators of that content, are younger and younger.
FADEL: So do Gen Z and Gen Alpha get credit for words or phrases like brain rot?
MARTÍNEZ: Well, Grathwohl says most of the trendy words younger generations use today can be traced back centuries. For example, brain rot, that was first used in 1854 by American author Henry David Thoreau.
FADEL: Thoreau, you say?
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, and he didn't even have a smartphone or anything. He wrote about leading a simple life, quiet reflection and also using your natural surroundings.
GRATHWOHL: I think what he was referring to is a inability of people to reason and to think. It's a fitting reminder that there is an antidote to brain rot, which is really being present and living in our real lives.
FADEL: Were there any other Word of the Year contenders, A?
MARTÍNEZ: I'm glad you asked, Leila, because Casper Grathwohl says Oxford also considered trendy words like demure, slop and, his personal favorite, lore.
GRATHWOHL: I love the term lore because it implies a certain peek behind the curtain, a revealing of something about ourselves or our stories or the mythology of who we are and sharing that with others. And young people have really reclaimed the word lore in a way that makes me think of it as freshly retro.
FADEL: Like fashion and music, we recycle and rediscover old terminology and then claim it as our own.
MARTÍNEZ: One of these days, Leila, the word A or A will be the Word of the Year. I mean, it's very versatile. It's...
FADEL: No, no, no.
MARTÍNEZ: What?
FADEL: This conversation ends now.
MARTÍNEZ: It's your favorite NPR host, A Martínez.
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