Hitting the Links
A few nods to matters of interest to wordplayers...
Here are a few quick things that struck me as worth sharing.
The American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year for 2025 is “slop.” If you don’t know why, you’re clearly not reading too much about AI issues.
What’s more, all the ADS nominees are worth reading. I’m doing my best to add them to my vocabulary, except for lowkirkenuinely, meaning low-key, “Kirk-style,” and genuinely. The term honors (grimace) Charlie Kirk, a political figure I (1) despise, (2) don’t consider “genuine” at all, and (3) expect to be forgotten in a few more years. I’ll stick with lowkenuinely.
Looking into this led me to this list of Wiktionary “hot words.” Wiktionary usually waits a year before including new words in its database, since some of them come and go quickly, but these are the few for which it breaks that rule, feeling they’re likely to have staying power. I disagree when it comes to Kirk-related words, but the others should be of interest to word lovers!
Quiara Vasquez has returned with a crossword roundup megapost. She’s planning to kick these up to a weekly schedule, and while that looks like a daunting ambition, I hope she manages! Diary of a Crossword Fiend covers a fair sampling of mainstream outlets, but there’s not really a good source that reflects both mainstream and indie ones. And I have to say I prefer Vasquez’s “celebrate the best” approach to most of the other analysis in the space. Life’s too short to spend too much of it complaining.
While I know a lot about the history of GAMES Magazine, I knew pretty much nothing about Games and Puzzles Magazine until I stumbled across this account of its history. A British publication tied to the cultural history of 1970s Britain and its nerdy subculture, the magazine was never a commercial success, but its issues are key documents in the history of certain diversions.
One of my long-standing interests has been logo design: sometimes it’s about creative topography, sometimes it’s about a glyph or simple illustration that represents a brand. The 2025 Logo Trend Report from Logolounge is about both kinds of logo and might lean a bit more on the second, but almost all the design trends it notes could apply to the first.
I might still write a full essay post about one or two of these, but I wanted to be sure to give them a nod, at least.
One more that tickled my fancy, though not for wordplay-related reasons, was this short sci-fi film, “I Think James Is in a Time Loop.” Warning for some suicide-adjacent stuff (it’s not really suicide if you know you’ll be back). A good example of what a filmmaker can do with simple resources these days!