Earlier this week, Oxford Languages announced the Oxford 2023 Word of the Year:

“rizz (n.).”

Definition? (Even I needed one, and I qualify as a Gen Zer according to most metrics.)

‘Rizz’ is a colloquial noun, defined as ‘style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner’.

Etymologically, the term is believed to be a shortened form of the word ‘charisma’, taken from the middle part of the word, which is an unusual word formation pattern.

In a sentence:

Some say Ron DeSantis’s campaign has suffered due to his lack of rizz.

Gavin Newsom has rizz coming out of his pores.

Natty Review just rizzed up their magazine!

You might be wondering, rightly, how this juvenile jumble of letters entered the prestigious halls of Oxford and landed the coveted title of Word of the Year 2023.

I have an answer for you: popular vote à la the internet.

As Oxford University Press proudly espoused:

Last year, for the first time in its history, our Oxford Word of the Year was placed completely in the hands of the public, with English speakers worldwide given the chance to have their say.

Almost 400,000 people took to social media to join the discussion, before ‘goblin mode’ was crowned the winner with an overwhelming 93% of the vote.

The democratization of the selection process has resulted in words of the year marked by their significance in digital microcosms, particularly those that flourish among the youths. “Goblin mode” has a particularly grotesque definition: “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.”

Oxford is undoubtedly trying to demonstrate that a new dialect — a new language, nearly — is forming within the innumerable forums of the worldwide web. Institutions such as Oxford — the primary steward of the English language for centuries — have a choice: elevate this new garble, or propel English speakers on toward worthier turns of phrase. But alas, Shakespeare and Dickens have been tossed out and replaced with TikTokers and online trolls.

Many, many, many, many studies have documented the negative effects of extended internet use on the human mind. A legion of hours wasted on social media have collectively shortened our attention spans. Using Google instead of our own faculties of recollection has caused nationwide memory loss. Bad, depressing, endemic, et cetera.

If internet slang is truly the singular source of new words in the English language at present — if all other authorial creativity is dead — then perhaps the greatest disappointment of Oxford’s 2023 word choice is that they could have selected runner-up, “beige flag (n.),” which at least offers a trace of whimsy:

A character trait that indicates that a partner or potential partner is boring or lacks originality; (also) a trait or habit, esp. of a partner or potential partner, viewed as extremely characteristic, but not distinctly good or bad.

But no, rizz it is. And so, we are forced to look on and watch the English language dissolve into unrecognizable jargon — jargon that will soon be too vast and fragmented to codify within the bindings of dictionaries anyhow.

Perhaps reverting to Latin isn’t the worst idea.