Can I have a word with you?

Another year wanes into a slivered gibbous. It is the time when we look back, sometimes in awe, at what moved us, be it laughter or tears, causes or effects, people or places, sounds or silence. We quantify and identify the stories and the words that changed us, and in some cases, a much wider audience. We act or react depending on the winds. We are the consumers of information that comes to us or at us, temptations of technology to be digested or discarded. As one who writes, words are sustenance. They are the nutrients of imagination. They transport us beyond our own reality or they anchor us to what is most familiar. They enable, mostly in a good way. Whether written or spoken or implied, words are the foundation of communication that sustains friendships or creates classics or even changes worlds. And so it comes to pass in this season of superlatives that the best, the most, the top 10s, and the ____ of the Year dominate our consciousness. Stories that were the newsworthiest, whether geopolitical or environmental, techno-cultural or societal, controversial or incontrovertible. They break the Internet and dominate the tabloids. Pics are valued, but words, they are priceless.Read: Dr. Howard Goldstein: Two red lines: A retrospectiveFor two decades, Merriam-Webster, of dictionary fame, has chosen the “top word of the year.” For 2023, that word is authentic, not a novel word by any stretch, and one first recorded in 1300-50. Defined as “having an origin supported by unquestionable evidence, genuine, real, actual, conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features, true to one’s own personality, spirit or character.” Authentic in 2023 is perhaps the result of the emergence of artificial intelligence, specifically Open AI’s ChatGPT, which has insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of our lives. Can we handle the “truth” as defined by AI? Or are we seeking alternatives to an artificial veritas? Other recent Merriam-Webster words of the year: 2022: gaslighting2021: vaccine2020: pandemic COVID weighed heavy on the minds of the many, interminably. 2023 Merriam-Webster runners-up: coronation, dystopian, implode, doppelgänger, kibbutz, elemental, indict, X, EGOT, covenant, deepfake, deadname and rizz. I sheepishly admit that I had to Google a few of these, especially rizz, which happens to be the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2023 word of the year. Derived from charisma, rizz is “the ability to attract a romantic partner through style, charm, and attractiveness.” Oxford’s runners-up were: prompt, situationship and swiftie. My Wikipedia view was one of the more than 84 million in 2023. The most popular, and it comes as no surprise, ChatGPT, which garnered 49,490,406 page views, second only to “deaths in 2023.” There should be a “medical word of the year” category. Just think of the possibilities:Burnout, the gift that keeps on givingDivisiveness, the antithesis of collegialIsolation, a deep feeling despite your cohort sizeSilo, where isolation can be storedInterprofessional, the Hatfields and McCoys meet the apecialists and FPsTri-demic, the three horsemen of the apocolypseMAiD, a conundrum wrapped in an enigmaLong-COVID, foggy bottom with seemingly no endWait-time, the never-ending storyTelemedicine, touchless technologyStereotactic, my personal ablationAnd the list goes on, jump in, help me out. Please, can I have a word.

Can I have a word with you?

Register for free access or login.

More Blog Posts In This Series

The ‘Maplewiser’

Doing time: Hallway medicine is out of hand

Senescence

Blog Author

Related Topics