Daily Dirt: Word of the year is ‘authentic,’ according to Merriam-Webster

Daily Dirt for Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023

The worst job of the year is sewer cleaning, according to everyone … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 818 of The Daily Dirt.

1. The Merriam-Webster “Word of the Year” for 2023 is “authentic.”

“We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,” Merriam-Webster editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press. “What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”

Authentic cuisine. Authentic voice. Authentic self. Authenticity as artifice. 

Lookups for the word are routinely heavy on the dictionary company’s site but were boosted to new heights throughout the year, Sokolowski said.

Sokolowski said the Merriam-Webster team does not delve into the reasons people head for dictionaries and websites in search of specific words. Rather, they chase the data on lookup spikes and world events that correlate. This time around, there was no particularly huge boost at any given time but a constancy to the increased interest in “authentic.”

Other recent words of the year were:

• 2022: Gaslighting
• 2021: Vaccine
• 2020: Pandemic  
• 2019: They
• 2018: Justice 

The following words were also under consideration for 2023 Word of the Year: rizz, kibbutz, implode, deadname, doppelganger, coronation, deepfake, dystopian and covenant.

2. Worst three jobs? How about the following three:

• Gold medal: Sewer cleaner. It’s a sewer, folks. A sewer.
• Silver medal: Cleaning up a crime scene. Not for the weak of stomach.
• Bronze medal: Roadkill cleaner. I think scooping up the dead skunks would be the worst. Raccoons a close second.

3. The U.S. News and World Report recently listed the most affordable U.S. cities to retire in:

• 1. Youngstown, Ohio: The magazine cannot be serious. This town is a dump. It has had one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation for many years, and it’s not like there is a lot of tourist appeal. And yes, I’ve been to Youngstown — more than once, in fact — and could not wait to leave on each of those visits.
• 2. Hickory, N.C.: Outside of NASCAR fans, no one has ever visited Hickory. Ever.
• 3. Springfield, Mo.: I found myself in Springfield one weekend about 20 years ago for a college softball tournament. Seemed like a nice place, but No. 3? 
• 4. Brownsville, Texas: This town IS actually a tourist mecca. There’s a lot of historic sites in the vicinity.
• 5. Huntington, W. Va./Ashland, Ky.: Another shocker. My recollection of visiting this area was it reminded me of a southern version of Youngstown. This metro area of about 360,000 is nestled along the Ohio River.
• 6. Fort Wayne, Ind.: The city used to be the home of a great top-40 style radio station known from coast to coast by its call letters: WOWO.
• 7. Winston-Salem, N.C.: Hey, Earl Monroe played college basketball there, so there’s that.
• 8. Mobile, Ala.: I have a friend who lives in the Mobile area, former college basketball coach Joe Gottfried, and he likes it there.
• 9. Toledo, Ohio: Toledo has taken a lot of shots over the years and deals with the usual plagues of cities these days, like loss of industry and population. I always found the area rather appealing. The winters, however, can be brutal.
• 10. South Bend, Ind.: It’s the only city on this list that is the home to major college football team. The winters here are brutal, too.

Steve Thought O’ The Day
Concerning those bad jobs, how about if you had to clean up a dead skunk that fell into a sewer?

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. For the 60th consecutive year, Steve’s word of the year is “dessert.”