Chatting 2024 Words of the Year with Grammar Girl

I am excited to share that I recently appeared on an episode of the always delightful and distinguished Grammar Girl podcast. 

Its host, the inimitable Mignon Fogarty, and I had a fun and freewheeling conversation about the 2024 Words of the Year.

Give it a watch! 

You can also read the transcript or just listen here.

Now, the topic, Word of the Year, is one near and dear to me. For much of my time heading up content at Dictionary.com, I oversaw our annual Word of the Year campaign—and the brilliant people that put it together.

I bring precisely that experience to my chat on Grammar Girl, explaining how dictionaries make their selections and providing lexical insights into 2024’s rich crop of winners, which included brain rot, demure, manifest, polarization, and kakistocracy.

Mignon and I also share our personal choices for the past year—as well as words we’ve chosen for ourselves to guide us in 2025. Can you guess what I picked?

I’m no stranger to Grammar Girl, though. 

Back in 2022, I had the pleasure of talking about new words we added to Dictionary.com, how they get chosen, and what they reveal about the ever-evolving English language.

And in 2017, Grammar Girl read an article I wrote about the many side words in English.

If your love of language is hungering for more, subscribe to Grammar Girl, which has long been sharing tips and stories about this lovably quirky English language of ours.