[Ads-l] 2023 Word of the Year is "enshittification"

[Ben Zimmer]

https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/

The American Dialect Society, in its 34th annual words-of-the-year vote,
selected "enshittification" as the Word of the Year for 2023. More than
three hundred attendees took part in the deliberations and voting, in an
event hosted in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America’s annual
meeting.

The term enshittification became popular in 2023 after it was used in a
blog post by author Cory Doctorow, who used it to describe how digital
platforms can become worse and worse. "Here is how platforms die: first,
they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things
better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business
customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call
this enshittification," Doctorow wrote on his Pluralistic blog.

Presiding at the Jan. 6 voting session was Ben Zimmer, chair of the ADS New
Words Committee and language columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
"'Enshittification' is a sadly apt term for how our online lives have
become gradually degraded," Zimmer said. "From the time that it first
appeared in Doctorow’s posts, the word had all the markings of a successful
neologism, being instantly memorable and adaptable to a variety of
contexts."

The full press release, including all winners, candidates, and vote tallies
for all candidates, is here:
https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-press-release/

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org