This Year's Word

Every year various publications feel it their responsibility to designate the individual they deem to be “the Person of the Year.” Those are interesting for a moment evoking either agreement or disappointment. But I also find it interesting that other groups instead choose a word or phrase that they feel somehow encapsulates events of the days and months that made up the year we have all just lived through.

In that vein I came across this online several days ago.

“Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is ‘polarization’ — a word that has been used incessantly to describe the fraught state of American politics. Earlier this month, the Oxford Dictionary announced that ‘brain rot’ was its word of the year, while the Cambridge Dictionary declared ‘manifest’ its lead word of 2024.”

I cannot argue with any of those choices. Indeed, in my view they seem somehow related. Take the first two. Certainly, our polarization is not doing a great deal for the enhancement of our intellects.

Indeed, this year has been characterized by a continuing series of almost playground level dialogues. “Did so” and “Did not” exchanges were substituted for serious policy discussions. People were struggling, and serious answers were needed, but instead conversations seemed to devolve into “It’s all your fault’ charges and countercharges. Issues were pushed aside because each group was afraid that the other might somehow get a leg up in some future election. Hence “Polarization” seems like an appropriate choice for 2024.

“Brain rot” is also an interesting choice, and not only because it is not just one word but two. I understand the brain to be like a muscle in that to the extent it is used, it grows stronger. Further, it becomes more capable of doing what it has been working on. Conversely, like a muscle, if it is not used for certain activities, those functions grow weaker from that disuse.

Unfortunately, we have not been working on the significant issues that face us.? The problem solving portion of our brains has been relegated to second place while we engage in serial nit-picking in hopes that the other side will be made to look bad. Observing that practice makes the choice of “brain rot” seem equally apt.

That leads me to the third word, “manifest.” One definition is “display or show (a quality or feeling) by one's acts or appearance.” Unfortunately, our polarization and maybe even our brain rot, has been on display. The sad part is that our children and grandchildren are watching. One has to be concerned about what values they are learning from their observations.

Others have offered their selections for this year now ending.This week on the PBS News Hour columnist David Brooks was asked for his word. He chose “exhaustion.” Again I cannot find fault with his choice. The constant conflict has been wearing on the mind and soul. It is clear, at least to me, that we have to do better than that.

These words from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address come to mind:

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this land will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely, they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

I have my own word, not for the year that is just now ending, but rather for days and months of the year to come. That word is “hope.” Hopefully, in this new year, our better angels will more often prevail. Hopefully we will be more gracious, open, generous, empathetic, and understanding, offering the possibility that next year’s summary words can be more up lifting. That is my hope, and I pray that it might be so.