[HN Gopher] American Dialect Society 2025 Word of the Year Is "S...
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American Dialect Society 2025 Word of the Year Is "Slop"
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 61 points
Date : 2026-01-11 18:50 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (americandialect.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (americandialect.org)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Where some of the other big WOTY selections ended up:
|
| Oxford 'rage bait' https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-
| the-year-2025-i...
|
| Collins 'vibe coding'
| https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-w...
|
| Cambridge 'parasocial'
| https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2025/11/18/cambridge-di...
|
| Dictionary.com '67' https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-
| year-2025/
|
| Merriam-Webster 'slop' https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I think ADS and Merriam-Webster got it right. "Rage bait" and
| "parasocial" were the WOTY 2-3 years ago; not that they've gone
| away, but they were of a previous moment. "Vibe coding" is too
| specific, and "67" is trying too hard to be Hip and With It.
|
| "Slop" is the word that perfectly captures what so much of 2026
| was about, and I heard it from every direction, including
| people not into tech at all.
| shmerl wrote:
| Another new term - sloperator.
| BoneShard wrote:
| microslop
| shmerl wrote:
| That one too
| robotnikman wrote:
| Me and my coworkers have been using Microslop a lot lately.
| Usually when Teams is having some kind of annoying issue.
| anonnon wrote:
| The wikipedia entry, should it ever get one, ought to
| prominently feature a photo of Simon Willison.
| layer8 wrote:
| I guess Urban Dictionary needs updating:
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sloperator
| anonnon wrote:
| > The word slop was recognized for its widespread use for low-
| quality, high-quantity content, most typically produced by
| generative AI. While AI slop was a nominee in the American
| Dialect Society's 2024 Word of the Year vote, in 2025 slop could
| stand on its own,
|
| I'm not sure if it matters, but the term AI Slop started on
| 4chan, probably on /g/, derived from the ubiquitous 4chan
| "goyslop" meme (used to describe ultraprocessed food). Seeing
| "normies" casually throwing it around, completely unaware of its
| etymology is... interesting. Likewise interesting is how this
| article retconned its etymology, to omit any mention of its true
| inspiration. (Maybe because the term has gone mainstream?)
| fluoridation wrote:
| I'm pretty sure "slop" in the sense used in "AI slop" is a word
| in common usage for any kind of cheap, low-quality, unpalatable
| edible paste, like gruel or anything of that nature, especially
| when it has a homogeneous consistency. It can also appear in
| verb form such as "slop it onto a plate", that is to scoop up
| the slop with a ladle or some other utensil and messily splat
| in onto a dining plate. It very much is not Internet slang, and
| I'd say it's quite an appropriate term for what it describes in
| its new meaning.
| anonnon wrote:
| "AI slop" is an internet meme that bears a strking
| resemblance to another, older meme, "goyslop"; why is it such
| a stretch to believe the former derived from the latter? "AI
| slop" was being used on 4chan as far back as _November, 2022_
| on /g/:
|
| https://desuarchive.org/g/thread/89758234/#q89758967
|
| https://desuarchive.org/g/thread/89911387/#q89931883
|
| It also saw its first use that month on /pol/, though I won't
| link to the archived threads (for obvious reasons). Unless
| you can provide earlier prior art, the most likely etymology
| of the term is 4chan, November, 2022, derived from "goyslop."
| wincy wrote:
| Because we've fed slop to pigs since the 1600s? It's a
| commonly known word with a clearly understood meaning. It
| didn't come from or is a shortening of goyslop, you're just
| flat out wrong.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| This while thread is wild.
|
| Slop has always been a bulk shitty thing.
| stonogo wrote:
| Same source shows 'slop' alone being used as far back as
| 2008: https://desuarchive.org/_/search/text/slop/order/asc/
| Some of these uses are the verb form, but most are the noun
| form, being used in pretty much the same sense it has been
| used for generations, and is in use today.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Okay. If "slop" is a shortened form of "goyslop", then
| what's the etymology of "goyslop"? Is it just a wholly
| novel sequence of unrelated letters?
| nephihaha wrote:
| Goy is the Hebrew for a Gentile (or a nation). However,
| while goyslop is an earlier coinage I certainly do not
| link it to AI-slop, but more to "sloppy".
| nephihaha wrote:
| Nah... I've heard the term slop used all my lifetime. Very
| common word, as is "sloppy". In fact, I'd connect it with
| sloppy in the sense of poor workmanship.
| amdsn wrote:
| I remember slop, sloppa, etc. were frequently used terms on
| /ck/ (the cooking board) long before any nouns and adjectives
| were prepended to them. it is unfortunate that most 4chan lingo
| nowadays enters the mainstream via the /pol/ -> twitter human
| centipede, which usually means the words pick up a certain
| awful flavor from that board.
| nephihaha wrote:
| Sloppy is extremely common, more so than slop.
| JBorrow wrote:
| I'm not sure that's an accurate description of the word's
| entomology not least because "goyslop" is itself derived
| from... "slop", which is low quality high-volume food for
| livestock.
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(page generated 2026-01-11 23:01 UTC)