The Word of the Year

    

                                                BRAIN ROT
   In my last post I mentioned the word of the year for 2024 which is shown right above. As usual, I don't agree and think there are better choices. First of all, if it is going to be the word of the year, then it should be just one word.
   "Brain rot" is the choice of a few Oxford lexicographers, aided by some public input. I like better the pick of the picky people at the Economist. As the newly elected president in the United States began selecting the new government officials, a better word of the year came to the surface - KAKISTOCRACY: the rule of the worse. This is from the Economist: 

   So the word everyone was Googling was kakistocracy: the rule of the worst. The first root, kakos, is found in few others in English. “Kakistocracy” is not found in ancient sources; it seems to have been coined in English as an intentional antonym to aristocracy, originally “rule by the best”. Having spiked on Google Trends the day after Mr Trump’s election, kakistocracy jumped a second time in the wake of these nominations. Searches surged a third time on November 21st, when Mr Gaetz announced that he would withdraw from consideration for attorney-general, suggesting that he was seen as the worst of the worst. The term was particularly popular in Democratic strongholds such as Oregon, Massachusetts and Minnesota....
   Kakistocracy has the crisp, hard sounds of glass breaking. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on whether you think the glass had it coming. But kakistocracy’s snappy encapsulation of the fears of half of America and much of the world makes it our word of the year.
   
    A close second for me, is a word from down under - Enshittification - defined by Australia's Macquarie Dictionary as, “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
  (By the way, if you missed the word of the year discussions, perhaps it is because you have brain rot. Here is the common definition:
"Brain rot" is a term that describes the supposed decline of a person's mental or intellectual state, particularly as a result of consuming too much online content that is considered trivial or unchallenging. It can also refer to something that is likely to lead to such deterioration.)

The Bonus: I often offer one, but this is a good one if you just want to stay online and not go Christmas shopping.
   "Enshittification" was my second choice because I noticed that it had already been proposed before the Aussies chose it this year. If you are interested in such things as these then go to the American Dialect Society where you will find all of their word choices going back to 1990. 
For example, way back in 2014, here are a couple of words which indicate we have made no progress at all:
columbusing: "cultural appropriation, especially the act of a white person claiming to discover things already known to minority cultures."
manspreading: "of a man, to sit with one’s legs wide on public transit in a way that blocks other seats."

There are also other words offered for various categories. To wit: Most Creative; Most Useful; Most Outrageous. There are even Hashtags and Emojis. 
    One of my favorites is in the Euphemism category and it is: 
structurally restrictive housing: solitary confinement (rebranded by the New York City Department of Correction.)
   Enjoy your day surfing rather than shopping, both of which contribute to brain rot. You might as well stay warm.
Go to the American Dialect Society and then click on "Words of the Year.

Intellectual Resolutions - 2019

 Other editions
      By now you have probably abandoned any attempts at elevating your level of fitness for 2019 and have grown very tired of all those advertisements for machines and gyms designed for that purpose. Perhaps your goal now is improving your brain which is a more realistic option in that it can be done inside where it is warm. You probably don’t have a lot of time and I am quickly running out of it so I will offer here some shortcuts to smartness.

     They come in the form of books which are short and lighter than dumbbells. Brevity is not necessarily achieved by eliminating substance. Some of the subjects covered in these brief books are heavy indeed. I am not referring to the many titles that begin with  ….For Dummies and here will offer you works produced under the imprimatur of a scholarly publisher.

Very Short Introductions - Oxford University Press

     The folks at Oxford produce a large number of intellectual self-help books, all of which conveniently mention in the title, Very Short Introduction…. There are over 600 in this series arranged into six broad subject areas: Arts & Humanities, Dictionaries & Reference, Law, Medicine & Health, Science & Mathematics, and the Social Sciences. Those broad categories are broken into many narrower ones ranging from Agnosticism  and Adam Smith to Viruses and Zionism. I chose to skip, Ageing: A Very Short Introduction since I feel like I know something about that subject and, as I mentioned, am increasingly short of time. Additional details are offered below.

30 Second Books - Ivy Press

       

     If you don't even have enough time to read a very short introduction to a subject, you may be able to spare a few minutes to glance at these books which are produced by Ivey Press. Although not a university press, it does appear to be based in the U.K., which should be good enough. According to them, the 30 Second series is internationally acclaimed and has been translated into 30 languages. More details below.

Sources:
OUP
If you are looking for a very short introduction to something see the OUP website.
The entry for the series on Wikipedia is also helpful.
IVY
Ivy Press is part of the Quarto Group and the website is here.
The 30 Second titles are more easily found here. 

Post Script:
If you live in the London, Ontario area over 65 Very Short Introduction...are available up at Western. (Other institutions of higher learning offer these shortcuts; see this guide and description from the University of Michigan.)
There are also around 10 titles in the London Public Libraries. One of them is devoted to Derrida, about whom we no longer need to know.
I only located one 30 Second book, but it is a good one if you want to figure out philosophy:
30 Second Philosophies: The 50 Most Thought-Provoking Philosophies Explained in Half a Minute.