A WORDY CELEBRATION OF ALL THINGS LEXICAL,
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Live on Zoom
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Episode 91: Words of 2025
Past chats
TWC 85: John Kelly, former content chief at Dictionary.com, on the joys of etymology, featuring a quiz on word origins
TWC 86: Keith Houston on the interesting history of emoji and his new book, Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji
TWC 87: Martha Barnette of the word-lovers' radio show A Way With Words on her new book, Friends With Words
The That Word Chat Words of the Year 2025 panel is, from top left, John Kelly, Fiona McPherson, Lynne Murphy, Peter Sokolowski, Kelly Wright and Ben Zimmer.
Update: The American Dialect Society selected slop as its word of the year: https://americandialect.org/2025-word-of-the-year-is-slop/.
Every year, lexicographers and marketing departments select a word of the year, and apparently not super successfully — there is rarely consensus on the one word that captures the essence of the preceding year. This year, however, might be the year of slop.
Slop was noted as the word of 2025 by Merriam-Webster, the Economist magazine, and Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary (which went with AI slop).
Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines slop as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence."
There is still not word-of-the-year uniformity, though other dictionaries have also focused on our troubled relationship with the online world. Oxford Dictionaries selected rage bait. Cambridge went with parasocial, and Collins selected vibe coding. Dictionary.com picked the undefined 6-7.
Next up in word of the year season is the American Dialect Society, whose members will gather to discuss
the words of the year and vote on winners in several categories in New Orleans on Jan. 9. Nominations are being accepted until the very end of 2025 (Eastern Time).
After that season-ending event, we will gather a stellar, international group of lexicographers together for the annual That Word Chat Word of the Year episode on Jan. 13, 2026.
Our panel this year includes Kelly Wright and Ben Zimmer from the American Dialect Society, Fiona McPherson from Oxford English Dictionary, Peter Sokolowski from Merriam-Webster, Lynne Murphy of the University of Sussex and editor of Dictionaries: The Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, and John Kelly, formerly of Dictionary.com, who chose an etymology of the year for his Mashed Radish blog.
Sign up below for the Zoom link to the live show, then join us at 4:30 p.m. ET (21:30 UTC) on Tuesday, Jan. 13.
TWC 90: Peter Sokołowski on the new twelfth edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, the first new edition in 20 years
TWC 89: Stefan Fatsis on his new book, Unabridged, which tells of his time embedded at Merriam-Webster in Springfield, Mass.; audio podcast only
TWC 88: Nick Norlen, founder and editor of Paper Airplane magazine, "the grown-up version of the magazines you loved as a kid"
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Alice Steinke
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TWC 84: Cognitive psychologist Corinne Jorgenson about the possibilities and pitfalls of writing and editing with generative AI
TWC 83: Lorna Gibb on the day of the North American release of Rare Tongues: The Secret Story of Hidden Languages
TWC 82: Kelly Elizabeth Wright on new words and her work as an assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin
TWC 81: A panel of international lexical superstars with a wide-ranging discussion about the words that typified 2024
TWC 80: Amanda Jones, author of That Librarian, about her ordeal that came with standing up to book banning in her Louisiana town
TWC 79: Jesse Schiedlower, author of The F-Word, now in its fourth edition, and the online Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
TWC 78: Ben Yagoda, author of Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English, talking about English expressions making their way to the U.S.
TWC 77: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary, talking about new entries reflecting Australian English
TWC 76: Karen Yin, author of The Conscious Style Guide, a "roadmap for writing and speaking with sensitivity and awareness"
TWC 39: Ann Friedman, creator of Planet Word, the museum of language in Washington, D.C.
TWC 41: Russell Harper, of the Chicago Manual of Style and Daniel Heuman, the original developer of PerfectIt
TWC 42: Erin McKean, founder of the not-for-profit Wordnik.com, the world’s biggest online dictionary
TWC 43: Editing superstars Denise Cowle and Louise Harnby, co-hosts of The Editing Podcast
TWC 44: Editor and sensitivity reader Crystal Shelley, creator of the Conscious Language Toolkits for Editors and Writers
TWC 45: Fred Shapiro, editor of the updated edition of "The New Yale Book of Quotations"
TWC 75: Cory Doctorow, prolific science fiction author, activist and journalist, on his books, and monopolies in tech and publishing
TWC 46: Paula Froke, editor of the Associated Press Stylebook, on the decision-making process at the influential guide
TWC 47: Our second annual foray into word puzzle, featuring four puzzle creators from The Inkubator
TWC 48: Half dozen guests representing the dictionaries and organizations that selected a word of the year for 2021
TWC 49: Anne Curzan, the voice of linguistics for Michigan Public Radio on the show That's What They Say
TWC 50: Dennis Duncan of the University College London talking about his "Index, A History of the"
TWC 52: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary and plans for the Oxford Dictionary of African American English
TWC 53: The brothers Zimmer, Ben and Carl, talking about writing about words and science
TWC 54: Ellen Jovin, author of Rebel With A Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian
TWC 55: Ryan North, author, illustrator, supervillain consultant, polymath and creator of Dinosaur Comics and more
TWC 56: Kelly Wright, a sociolinguist specializing in linguistic discrimination and its institutional outcomes
TWC 58: Joshua Blackburn, game designer and quizmaster and a chance to play the new League of the Lexicon
TWC 59: Words of the Year 2022, featuring an international panel of linguists and lexicographers
TWC 60: Gael Spivak, on the International Organization for Standardization's new standards for plain language
TWC 65: Maggie Lorenz, just after the Scripps National Spelling Bee, with some of the inside scoop
TWC 61: Copy editor Amy J. Schneider on her new book, Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction
TWC 66: Jeff Jarvis, internet pioneer and CUNY professor, talking about the age of print and the future of online
TWC 63: Roy Peter Clark, America’s writing coach talks about his latest book, Tell It Like It Is: A Guide to Clear and Honest Writing
TWC 67: Daniel Heuman, CEO of Intelligent Editing, on the future of artificial intelligence in editing
TWC 68: Megan Rosenbloom, author of Dark Archives, about books bound in human skin
TWC 69: Mignon Fogarty and the release of The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl
TWC 70: Words of the Year 2023, featuring one of the greatest panels of wordsters ever assembled
TWC 71: Maggie Smith and Connie Schultz, two writers in different genres and first-time children’s book authors
TWC 73: Russell Harper previews The Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition, live from ACES 2024 in San Diego
TWC 74: Erin Brenner winner of the ACES Robinson Prize and author of The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors