Am I chopped?

Listen to the audio version of this post here.

Words to Know

Are you heading into the New Year with language that says, “I’m in the swim of things?”

What I mean is: are you hip to the vocabulary that’s in vogue today?

And even as I type those questions, I realize that “in the swim of things,” “hip to,” and “in vogue” are not, in fact, in the swim of things, hip or in vogue. They’re dated. Maybe even old-fashioned.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, isn’t it?

You probably know I love words. I play with The New York Times “Spelling Bee” puzzle every day, and I almost always get to “Genius.” I’ve been happily doing crossword puzzles since I was a kid; most days I solve the Tribune’s puzzle and the one in The Times.

And it’s a point of pride that every once in a while, one of you writes to say you learned a new word from my blog!

And yet, I can find myself behind the eight ball when it comes to current slang. That’s why the NYT’s “2025 Slang Quiz: Do You Speak 2025?” was right up my alley. (Yes, “the eight ball” and “right up my alley” are dated phrases, aren’t they?)

So I took their quiz, thinking I might learn something. And I did …

Ate, chopped, served … what’s the difference?

I missed the question about a culinary term I wouldn’t want someone to use to describe my appearance.

None of them seemed like something I’d want in the caption below my picture! But one is apparently in common use among young people, and it means “ugly or unattractive.”

I was all in with the word for “dating down.” And the one that describes “feeling intense frustration or overwhelm.”

Aura farming? I’d be happy to look cool and build an aura, but I wasn’t at all sure how to accomplish that.

And what about the numbers that tweens are using, apparently at random? I guessed right and discovered that Dictionary.com called “6-7” their Word of the Year, even though they also said it’s impossible to define.

This makes no sense to me, but I guess that’s the whole idea?

Not a TikTok user; I was completely clueless about the Italian brain rot crew. All things considered, I can live with that level of ignorance.

Then there’s Noodle Boy. I took a good guess … and got it wrong. I did learn, though, that Timothée Chalamet is one.

I managed to identify the certain facial expression that “seems to arise in circumstances where younger generations are annoyed with the person speaking to them.” Although it occurs to me that any of us are capable of that blank stare—it can speak volumes without words.

And as the New Year begins, it would be a good idea for me to “free myself from distractions, hunker down, and tackle my goals.” But I couldn’t tell you the 2025 name for that productive state.

Bottom line …

The NYT tells me I “more or less speak 2025.”  That’s reasonably good news. At least it seems I won’t need a translator for an upcoming gig with participants who are almost all under 40. You might guess, I’ve been thinking about that …

I’m curious about your need to connect with people from different generations. If you click on the gift link up there and take the 2025 slang quiz, by all means tell us how you did in a comment below.

And how important is it to you to stay current with the way you talk?