Episode 78 - John Kelly and the 2025 Words of the Year

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Lexis

lexispodcast

78 episodes

3 weeks ago

A podcast about language and linguistics for A Level English Language students, teachers and anyone else who's interested in language.

Language Learning

Education

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A podcast about language and linguistics for A Level English Language students, teachers and anyone else who's interested in language.

Language Learning

Education

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Episode 78 - John Kelly and the 2025 Words of the Year

Lexis

52 minutes 40 seconds

3 weeks ago

Episode 78 - John Kelly and the 2025 Words of the Year

Welcome to episode 78 of Lexis in which Raj & Dan talk to John Kelly, former head of content at Dictionary.com, previous contributor to Merriam-Webster and Oxford Dictionaries, emoji lexicographer for Emojipedia, and school teacher. We discuss:

How WOTY decisions were made at Dictionary.com
Whether we should celebrate WOTY for getting us talking about words, or be cynical about it as a marketing exercise
What makes a WOTY stick around
What qualities a good WOTY should have
The sketchier WOTYs that we've seen
2025’s crop of WOTY nominations - what we’ve seen so far and what might be to come
WOTY as a barometer of the times
‘Fascism’ as John’s WOTY/etymology of the year and why an old word is pertinent again.

John’s blog is here: https://mashedradish.com/

‘Fascism’ is here; https://mashedradish.com/2025/11/04/fascism-etymology-of-the-year-2025/

He is also on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/mashedradish.bsky.social

Some of the WOTY choices we discuss are covered in the articles and posts below:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/rage-bait-2025-oxford-word-internet-language-defense/685143/?gift=h5ssLVeyARshEXLqfVq5YwEAlKAoVnByCEZqdOsZdV8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

https://theconversation.com/2025s-words-of-the-year-reflect-a-year-of-digital-disillusionment-270769

https://time.com/7334730/word-of-the-year-2025-cambridge-collins-dictionary-oxford-merriam/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/learning/what-teenagers-are-saying-about-6-7-and-the-era-of-brain-rot.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewjxqvqzgyo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z9xbh4j

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/brain-rot-what-the-oxford-word-of

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-words-that-define-our-enshittifed

https://bsky.app/profile/hooved-mammal.bsky.social/post/3m7ntojukdc2y

Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social

Contributors

Lisa Casey

blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

Dan Clayton

blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social

Jacky Glancey

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

Raj Rana

Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys