Some dogs have an amazing ability to learn the names of dozens, even hundreds of toys. Now, a new study suggests these super ...

An assortment of absurd, useful and funny words and phrases entered the vernacular this year. How well do you know them? By Miya Lee and Kendall Blomfield By the end of 2024, words like slop, brat, ...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is offering to pay illegal aliens $3,000 and provide a free plane ticket out of the U.S. if they register by the end of the year for self-deportation on the ...

We saw it on our phones. We ate it in our bowls. This year, “slop” was everywhere. It was so ubiquitous that it’s been named Merriam-Webster’s word of the year. Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary ...

Slop" was named Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year, reflecting a surge in low-quality, mass-produced AI content. The choice mirrors public reaction to generative AI, as people encountered a flood ...

Gail Flanagan received funding from the Research Ireland (formally the Irish Research Council) in 2021-2023 for PhD research unrelated to the current article. For us linguists, the flurry of “word of ...

Every year, teens quietly (and sometimes aggressively) update the English language while adults are still trying to figure out what “cheugy” means. In 2025, slang wasn’t just about sounding cool—it ...

Creepy, zany and demonstrably fake content is often called “slop.” The word’s proliferation online, in part thanks to the widespread availability of generative artificial intelligence (AI), landed it ...