This article is in partnership with Day Translations.

The 2024 “Word of the Year” according to Collins English Dictionary is: brat. “Brat” was the latest album title from British singer Charli XCX and the word was used cleverly in her marketing. “Brat” became a viral sensation making its way into day-to-day conversations and producing endless memes on social media, and ultimately making history by becoming associated with the 2024 US presidential campaign.

A Quick Word About Word of the Year

When did “Word of the Year” start? According to different sources, the tradition started in Germany in 1971 and in the United States in 1990 by initiative of the American Dialect Society. Since then, linguists have been curating their own lists of neologisms and new expressions, with Collins English Dictionary starting in 2013 and Merriam-Webster dictionary starting in 2003.

Dictionaries may or may not include the new words of the year in their upcoming editions. The word of the year is chosen by committees of linguists based on large scale data about the usage and frequency of specific words.

How Language Has Evolved From Boomers To Gen Z

Television was invented in 1927 and by the 1970s most houses had a TV set. When boomers were teenagers, the language used in television programmes was both a reflection of how people were talking in their normal lives and also an influence as to how people communicated.

Quoting bits of conversations from TV series became a way to create an instant connection, something that has evolved into today’s referencing to TikTok trending videos and sounds.

Boomers’ Slang

If we were to pick just one word that Boomers loved that would be “groovy”, a favourite between the 1960s and 1970s and which was popularised decades later in Austin Powers movies. “Cool cat” is a close second, although the expression was already quite common from the 1940s onwards.

Some Boomers expressions are still used today but it really depends on which social circles you belong to – there could be a few blank stares from different generations who have not heard of those expressions before.

Gen X’s Slang

Sandwiched between the Boomers generation and Millennials, Gen X represents people who grew up in the analogue era and then adapted to new technology, going fully digital whether they liked it or not.

What Gen Xers reference to in their conversations reflect things they saw and did when growing up, as many leisure activities were done in person and not online, for example playing games in an arcade, going to record stores and asking the shop assistant to listen to vinyl records before buying them or going to video rental shops to hire a film. Arcades were probably one of the best places to meet up friends. An expression that was coined at that time was “chill out” and it is still in use in conversation today, and it has a Gen X branding all over it.

Millennials’ Slang

With technology developing at an ever increasing rate, Millennials also had to adapt from the remaining bits of analogue technology to digital technology.

Is “yolo” the most popular Millennial slang? Most likely. “Adulting” is also a word that symbolises Millennials and their quest for a better work/life balance, with an added sense of disillusionment when your expectations as a child were not met once you became an adult and most daily tasks are simply not fun.

Gen Z’s Slang

Brought up being surrounded by technology, Gen Zers developed their own language that often confuses previous generations (which is a prerogative of most slangs). Fear not, you can take a quiz and find out how versant in Gen Z slang you are (I scored 10/10, thank you very much!).

With so many expressions to choose from it’s difficult to say what really sticks out, also because things move very fast among this generation and something that was trendy just a few days ago has already become obsolete.

Let’s settle with “slaps” and call it a day.

Word of the Year Over Time

Finally, let’s look at what the Word of the Year was in the past few years.

Taking the Collins English Dictionary as a reference, here is the list of Words of the Year since 2013:

2013 geek

2014 photobomb

2015 binge-watch

2016 Brexit

2017 fake news

2018 single-use

2019 climate strike

2020 lockdown

2021 NFT

2022 permacrisis

2023 AI

2024 Brat.

As new fashions and trends emerge, language will adapt and either reflect those changes or someone will create completely new words. It will certainly be fascinating to look back at current neologisms in years to come.