By Julie Reardon, HT Merriam Webster

 January is a pretty quiet time here in Hunt Country so I thought I would dedicate this month’s column to something a little more entertaining. I hope you find it enlightening.

 Polarization. It’s the Merriam Webster 2024 Word of the Year, in case you hadn’t heard. Among the top 10 were totality, fortnight, demure, pander, resonate and allision. At first, I thought allision might be some slang word that made it into Merriam Webster. Nope, it’s of maritime origins, used for a moving object colliding with a stationary one, such as the container ship Dali crashing into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge. Although more often described as a collision except in maritime publications, collision actually means two moving objects colliding, such as when you’re driving down a country road and hit a deer. Unless that deer was standing still, then it would be an allision.

Rounding out the 2024 top 10 were weird, cognitive and democracy. Merriam Webster uses various criteria to pick its top 10, but mainly how many times a word is looked up and how much it’s used now factor in. Fortnight, for example, is a primarily British word not widely used here. But it’s been around for 700 years, and means a period of 14 days and nights. Popularized by a Taylor Swift song of that name, it remains to be seen if use here becomes common. Even if you’re familiar with most or all the top 10 words, take a peek into slang words and phrases that are commonplace mid-decade, but unheard of or obscure before 2020.

Slang usually has its origins with the younger generation, those born after 1995. Pop and youth culture tend to create new slang words and trends. Historically, that meant TV shows, pop and hip-hop music, movies, and video games popular with kids, teens, and young adults influenced current slang. While those forms of media still shape new slang words and cool slang, young people now tend to spend more time online—and with that shift, the internet, and especially social media, drove the majority of American slang in 2024.  To many of us born prior to 1965, understanding the new words and phrases can be bewildering, especially as slang can be regional in both usage and popularity. The closer to the mountains and further south you go, you start to hear Southern slang, also confusing to those unfamiliar with it.

There’s no official source for the top slang words and phrases, probably because it’s so hard to keep up with them all. Almost daily, new phrases, abbreviations and words spread across social media platforms.  Gathered from various sources and in alphabetical order, here’s a list of some of the best I found: Ate, basic, beige, boujee (or bougie), cheugy, cringe, H/T or HT, IYKYK, Karen, Nepo baby, Noob, OK Boomer, quiet quitting, rizz, side eye, sus, yeet. If any of these puzzle you, imagine if you were trying to learn English!

Things I learned: some of these make sense, like basic and beige. These refer to everyday and ho hum or drab things or people. Boojee I was familiar with and love, because it comes from the word bourgeois and has a similar meaning. Bourgeois or bourgeoisie was a favorite insult of my late mother, bless her heart. She used it to describe social climbers with new money striving to improve their status among those with old money and real class. Cheugy is a derogatory reference to once fashionable or popular things or people, now outdated and appearing to be trying too hard. OK boomer? Delulu comes from delusional and usually refers to unusual or extreme behavior; HT or H/T means hat tip to properly attribute and acknowledge the original source of a meme, expression, image, or idea;  IYKYK stands for if you know, you know; a noob is a newbie or novice; and OK Boomer is a dismissive retort to condescending older folks. Quiet quitting is doing the bare minimum at your job; rizz comes from charisma and refers to someone’s ability to flirt and use charm. Side eye is a facial expression in which someone glances disapprovingly or suspiciously at another person, often using the corner of their eyes.  Sus means suspicious or suspect and yeet means to throw or express enthusiasm.

The South, and particularly the mountain areas, have their own slang and phrases. Here are some favorites widely used, starting with “Bless your heart”. It can mean oh, poor you or it can be used sarcastically. Yonder or over yonder means there and can be as vague as across the street or down the road. Y’all is often used incorrectly as it’s never used to refer to just one person, it means more than one person. A larger group might be all y’all. “Pitch a hissy” or hissy fit means to throw a temper tantrum; might could mean maybe and I reckon means I guess or I think. “Rode hard and put away wet” is not, as some think, sexual but rather it refers to a hard-ridden horse that is hastily stuck in its stall sweaty without being properly cooled off. Hifalutin means pretentious or pompous, in other words too big for his britches.

“That dog won’t hunt” means an idea, plan of action, or suggestion that simply isn’t going anywhere. It’s a slightly nicer way of outright rejecting or disparaging an idea. “Ain’t got a dog in this hunt” means an outcome or situation that has no effect on you.  Fixin’ to or sometimes fidna, I’m fixin’ to tell you that this phrase is as Southern as sweet tea. When you’re fixin’ to do something, it’s going to happen, but you also may decide to take your sweet time. And if you hear jeet, that means did ya eat yet?