Merriam-Webster Keeps It Real With Its Word Of The Year For 2023

Merriam-Webster Word of the Year via Associated Press NEW YORK — In an age of deepfakes and post-truth, as artificial intelligence rose and Elon Musk turned Twitter into X, the Merriam-Webster word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.” Authentic cuisine. “We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,” he said ahead of Monday’s announcement of this year’s word. The company’s data crunchers filter out evergreen words like “love” and “affect” vs. “effect” that are always high in lookups among the 500,000 words it defines online. DOPPELGANGER: Sokolowski calls this “a word lover’s word.” Merriam-Webster defines it as a “double,” an “alter ego” or a “ghostly counterpart.” It derives from German folklore. Interest in the word surrounded Naomi Klein’s latest book, “Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World,” released this year.