2020年度中国媒体十大流行语 + 2019年度十大翻译热词

回顾2024，你的脑海中会浮现哪些词语？

最近，《咬文嚼字》编辑部和牛津大学出版社均发布了2024年度热词。

究竟是哪些热词打动了无数人的心，成为了今年的语言风向标？

一起查收今年的中外“年度冠军词”，

看看哪些是你的心头好

“2024年十大流行语” 你说过哪几个？

What Staying Up All Night Does to Your Brain

熬夜对大脑有什么影响？

“脑腐”预警！你也中招了吗？

2024牛津年度热词“brain rot”/牛津大学出版社网站

‘Brain rot’ named Oxford Word of the Year 2024

Following a public vote in which more than 37,000 people had their say, we’re pleased to announce that the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024 is ‘brain rot’.

Our language experts created a shortlist of six words to reflect the moods and conversations that have helped shape the past year. After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, our experts came together to consider the public’s input, voting results, and our language data, before declaring ‘brain rot’ as the definitive Word of the Year for 2024.

Why ‘brain rot’?

‘Brain rot’ is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration”.

Our experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.

The first recorded use of ‘brain rot’ was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, which reports his experiences of living a simple lifestyle in the natural world. As part of his conclusions, Thoreau criticizes society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas, or those that can be interpreted in multiple ways, in favour of simple ones, and sees this as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort: “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

The term has taken on new significance in the digital age, especially over the past 12 months. Initially gaining traction on social media platform—particularly on TikTok among Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities—’brain rot’ is now seeing more widespread use, such as in mainstream journalism, amidst societal concerns about the negative impact of overconsuming online content. 

In 2024, ‘brain rot’ is used to describe both the cause and effect of this, referring to low-quality, low-value content found on social media and the internet, as well as the subsequent negative impact that consuming this type of content is perceived to have on an individual or society.

It has also been used more specifically and consistently in reference to online culture. Often used in a humorous or self-deprecating manner by online communities, it is strongly associated with certain types of content—including creator Alexey Gerasimov’s viral Skibidi Toilet video series, featuring humanoid toilets, and user-generated ‘only in Ohio’ memes, which reference bizarre incidents in the state. This content has given rise to emerging ‘brain rot language’—such as ‘skibidi’, meaning something nonsensical, and ‘Ohio’, meaning something embarrassing or weird—which reflects a growing trend of words originating in viral online culture before spreading offline into the ‘real world’.

Now also gaining momentum is a broader, more serious conversation about the potential negative impact that excessively consuming this content might have on mental health, particularly in children and young people. Earlier this year, a mental health centre in the US even published advice online about how to recognize and avoid ‘brain rot’.

“’Brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time,” said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, in Monday’s announcement.

“I also find it fascinating that the word ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha… These communities have amplified the expression through social media channels, the very place said to cause ‘brain rot,’” he added.

“It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of the social media that they’ve inherited.”

The word beat out five other shortlisted contenders, which included “lore,” meaning a body of (supposed) facts, background information and anecdotes required to fully understand something; “romantasy,” a portmanteau for literature combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy; and “slop,” which refers to low-quality content generated by artificial intelligence.

“Demure,” a word that went viral over the summer, has been named Dictionary.com’s 2024 word of the year — beating out other contenders like “brainrot,” “brat,” and “weird.”

demure原意是形容外表和行为上端庄、内敛、含蓄的人。但被TikTok一网红博主玩成了一种生活态度的表达。在她走红的视频里，她用“very mindful，very demure”形容自己的日常行为，比如穿着简单舒适，行为不急不躁，这表面上像是在表达一种精致的生活，不过也让人嗅出一种反讽的味道，似乎是在调侃那些有仪式感的人。随着very demure的系列视频走红，社交媒体上也出现了许多类似的模仿梗（meme），甚至很多名人也在社媒上纷纷模仿，推波助澜。

In an announcement Monday, the site said that the word experienced a “meteoric rise in usage” in 2024 — up 1,200% between January and August — a spike that was largely attributed to TikToker and beauty influencer Jools Lebron’s popularization of the phrase “very demure, very mindful” in a series of satirical videos that shook the internet.

“You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful,” Lebron says in one of her TikToks, donning a slightly pared-down version of her usual makeup of black, winged eyeliner and fake eyelashes.

“The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job. A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like (her sisters) Patty and Selma. Not demure,” she adds, using characters from “The Simpsons” TV show to make her point.

“Demure” has historically been used to describe discrete and reserved behavior, but “a new usage has spread through social media,” Dictionary.com said, highlighting the word’s recent associations with a person’s appearance and the way they act at work or in public places.

浪漫奇幻类小说，指一种结合了浪漫小说和幻想元素的虚构类作品类型，通常以浪漫爱情为故事主线，掺入魔幻、超自然、冒险的主题。从构词法看，romantasy是由romance 和fantasy合并而成。

2023至2024年，浪漫奇幻类作品成为了社交媒体的潮流，人们通过网络社交平台TikTok分享和讨论小说的细节，满足了大众的口味，尤其是女性读者。书中有大女主情节，有史诗剧情，还有爱情故事，类似国内风靡的网络小说。romantasy是时代的产物，可以暂时为人们逃避现实社会的烦恼提供一个避风港。

Romantasy is when the romantic and fantasy aspects of the story are equally important

Romantasy is just a romance book with a fantasy world as a backdrop

Romantasy is when the plot would fall apart without the romance

Romantasy is a fantasy plot with a central romance that follows romance book “beats” (see: Romancing the Beat, by Gwen Hayes)

Romantasy is just fantasy with “spicy” scenes