Merriam-Webster’s 2023 word of the year is “authentic.” (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)
“Authentic”, authentic in Spanish, has been declared “Word of the Year 2023” by the American company that publishes the famous dictionary Merriam Webster due to the significant increase in searches for the word due to the rise of official intelligence (AI) and social networks.
The technology tycoon Elon Musk and the singer Taylor Swift You are one of those famous people who like a word that has multiple meanings, although the main one refers to something that is “not a fake or imitation.”
“The rise of AI has helped spark interest in the word,” he says Peter Sokolowskieditor-in-chief of Merriam-Webster, in a statement.
“The line between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ is becoming increasingly blurred. As a result, authenticity has become the gold standard for building trust in social media and marketing, and ironically, authenticity has become a performance,” he added.
Celebrities like Elon Musk and Taylor Swift often use the word “authentic” when communicating with their audiences.
“Authentic” displaces terms like “rizz,” which is slang for charm or attractiveness, or “deepfake,” which according to Merriam-Webster is “an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent what someone is doing.” or says “something that was not actually done or said,” said the statement from the Massachusetts publisher with a history spanning more than 180 years.
“Authentic” also won the annual title because of its meaning of “true to one’s personality, spirit or character” and as a synonym for “genuine” and “current”. According to the statement, “people are thinking, writing, striving for, and judging what is “authentic” more than ever.
Searches for this word in the dictionary, which have always been significant in volume, experienced “a significant increase in 2023, driven by stories and conversations about artificial intelligence, celebrity culture, identity and social networks.”
Although authenticity is clearly a desirable quality, it is difficult to define and subject to debate, two reasons why many people turn to the dictionary, Merriam-Webster said.
Source: EFE