DICK YARBROUGH: One Word Or Two: Brain Rot is a Ridiculous Word of the Year

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.