“Slop”? The Dictionary Is Disappointed in You

My Fellow Americans,

You forced me to pick “slop” as my Merriam-Webster Word of the Year, which means the summarized search history of this proud nation collectively included seriously Googling “shrimp Jesus,” “Pope Trump,” and “Coco-Coola.” Has linguistics become a laughingstock, or has the country crumbled into satire? I cannot take it anymore: I’ve begun to sob, wail, whimper, and caterwaul.

Before calling my psychiatrist for new antidepressants, I reached out to my brother from a foreign mother, the Oxford English Dictionary, for comfort, solace, and consolation. He said his father, the Oxford University Press, selected “rage bait” as their Word of the Year, which he truly felt was an upgrade from 2024’s choice of “brain rot.” But aren’t “rage bait” and “brain rot” both two words? On top of losing cognizance, can we not count? When people read “Word of the Year” as plural, I feel vexed, downtrodden, and chagrined.

Of all the words this world has to offer, you Americans gravitate towards snowballing “slop”? I guess that’s a promotion from last year’s pick of “polarization,” meaning we have now come to harmonious terms on popular words… yet we’ve picked the digital equivalent of pigshit.

I personally better liked “Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg,” 2025’s close competition for Word of the Year. At least it has cultural significance, stemming from the Algonquian language of the Nipmuc. Plus, it’s polysyllabic and fun to pronounce.

I am filled with irrefragable beauty, astronomical and multifarious layers of mellifluous language. But “six seven” was another 2025 word runner-up. I am the dictionary, though having been born in 1831, I still don’t understand what “six seven” means. And like “rage bait,” it’s also two words. I bawl and ululate with lugubrious lacrimation.

I appreciate all neologisms; they feed my paginated stomach, keeping me alive and well. But I was enormously embarrassed when my lexicographers said “slop” reflects our zeitgeist. That’s so six, seven. Did I formally phrase that right?

Please, my dear fellow Americans, make America Sophic Again. Make promising word choices in 2026. Stop reading and watching so much fatuous and addictive AI. Do you remember how Shakespeare once invented words? Do you remember humans have brains? Let’s not let them rot. Let’s not succumb to ChatGPT. Let’s mock slop and strive to create intelligent, original content. We don’t exactly need to see cats sing. We can do this together, concomitantly, as an amalgamated nation of proliferating philologists, not frivolous pinheads.

Yours in good etymological faith,

Merriam-Webster