Our language experts created a shortlist of six words to reflect the moods and conversations that have helped shape the past year. After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, our experts came together to consider the public’s input, voting results, and our language data, before declaring ‘brain rot’ as the definitive Word of the Year for 2024. (Oxford University Press)
Read MoreThe humanitarian crisis has been worsened by several hospitals and clinics closing due to the growing violence. More than 700,000 people have been internally displaced, aggravating already dire food insecurity that has seen some 6,000 plunged into famine-level hunger. (The Telegraph)
Read MoreUS toy sales jumped from $22.3 billion in 2019 to $26 billion in 2020, and then to $30.1 billion in 2021, as parents struggled to entertain their kids at home during the pandemic. Sales dipped slightly in 2023, perhaps because of inflation, but remain solidly above 2019 levels. (North, Vox)
Read More"Demure" is Dictionary.com's word of the year, with all the credit for its popularity going to lifestyle and beauty influencer Jools Lebron and her catchphrase, "very demure, very mindful." "Demure" means "reserved, quiet, or modest," but the reaction to Lebron's use of the word was anything but. (Blair, NPR)
Read MoreThis would be a landmark piece of legislation in England and Wales, where the law treated attempted suicide as a crime until 1961. (Different laws apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland.) (Castle, The New York Times)
Read MoreThe property in Oxford, England, features rooms inspired by the beavers’ den and Mr. Tumnus’s cave from the Narnia books written by C.S. Lewis. And, to engage anyone’s imagination, there is also a ‘magic’ wardrobe that leads to the surrounding countryside. (Good News Network)
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