# Words that have suddenly become very popular **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 5, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962 "2020-03-05T13:38:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/21 "2020-03-05T18:43:31Z")
I’ve noticed people using the word “gaslighting” an awful lot in the last couple of years or so. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/22 "2020-03-05T18:53:18Z")
It’s been over used for over a decade now but I have to roll my eyes every time someone refers to a specific period of time as their “journey”. Every reality TV show contestant has to talk about their “journey” while being on the show. Every relationship reality TV show the couples have to talk about their “journey” together. Even corporate America has adopted it into their collection of buzzwords to talk about their companies “journey” when describing their business plans. “I’m really excited to take this journey with you” “I have have grown so much during my journey through this experience” “Let me tell you about my journey with weight watchers” “As our company expands we invite you to take this journey with us” Blech! ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/23 "2020-03-05T19:01:38Z")
> [@Dahnlor](#): > > I’ve noticed people using the word “gaslighting” an awful lot in the last couple of years or so. Yes! I believe even the Dixie Chicks have a new album coming out entitled “Gaslighter”. It would be refreshing if one of them said the album is actually named after one of their ex-boyfriends who likes to ignite his flatulence. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/24 "2020-03-05T19:09:07Z")
Cuck and cuckold ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/25 "2020-03-05T22:58:46Z")
I really don’t like it when the word [optics](https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/buzzword/entries/optics.html) is used in a business setting. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/26 "2020-03-05T23:17:09Z")
Disrupter. As in, “industry disrupter”, like Tesla or Limebike or other some-such company that is successfully “innovating”. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/27 "2020-03-05T23:40:58Z")
People who are upset with something are now referred to as being salty rather than being bitter. ---
**Author:** ![Garak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d78d45/32.png) [@Garak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garak)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/28 "2020-03-05T23:45:18Z")
Protagonist. I hate the word. It’s like everyone learned what it meant because of the Hunger Games reviews and now people won’t stop using it whenever it is slightly usable. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/29 "2020-03-06T00:52:41Z")
Metrics, analytics, processEEEEZZZ, “Messy,” as a description of behavior (similar to “salty” phenomenon) “I fuck with that” meaning anything from “I don’t mind doing that sometimes” to “That’s one of my favorite things to do.” ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/30 "2020-03-06T01:16:18Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I really don’t like it when the word [optics](https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/buzzword/entries/optics.html) is used in a business setting. Agreed, with the exceptions of businesses related to optics (e.g., optical transport networking). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/31 "2020-03-06T01:43:14Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Agreed, with the exceptions of businesses related to optics (e.g., optical transport networking). I agree. I am often in meetings when someone says “optics” to mean “that might make us look bad” ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/32 "2020-03-06T01:49:10Z")
I seem to see the word “super” being used all the time instead of “very”. As in “my friend got super angry”. ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/33 "2020-03-06T02:25:45Z")
“Pronoun” in place of “gender” ie “Im not sure what gender Howey identities with I hope I call him or her or they by the right pronoun.” “Novel” to describe the Coronavirus. “Scientists make predictions of the novel Coronavirus infection rate.” “Quid pro quo” had a big resurgence for obvious reasons. On Facebook “boomer” and “Karen” have been trending. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/34 "2020-03-06T02:33:03Z")
Everything seems to have become \*iconic \*over the last few years. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/35 "2020-03-06T03:16:42Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I feel like using “adjacent” to describe a related phenomena or to acknowledge that a word is imprecise has become more common suddenly. Like, “I"m not a democrat, but I am certainly Democrat-adjacent”. That’s come out of the Rationalist community (LessWrong and places like that) over the last few years “Ouster” is one I noticed a lot a couple of years ago (partly because it looks lexically weird to me) but that may have just been due to the fact that there was so much under-bus-throwing going on in American politics at the time ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/36 "2020-03-06T03:17:47Z")
Problematic, a word used to exclusively describe any piece of media written before 2012. I also feel dog-whistle has been used extensively to the point that it’s meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/37 "2020-03-06T13:08:17Z")
“Woke”. I’ve recently awakened to that one. “Do you feel me”? Well, no, I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/38 "2020-03-06T13:23:28Z")
This is one of the few times that I’ve wished that we could post images. I took a lot of the words in this thread and tried them out in Google Trends, looking at 2004-present. **Egregious** has clearly trending up, while **gravitas**? Not so much. **Cuck** was the big “winner“, however. Here’s a link to that specific word if you want a quick path to Google Trends. God I love the Internet. (When I don’t hate it) [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Cuck](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Cuck) ETA: Google Trends won’t tell you absolute popularity, by the way, but it will show you trends. Everything indexes to its highest level of use, indexed to 100. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/39 "2020-03-06T14:14:36Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > This is one of the few times that I’ve wished that we could post images. I took a lot of the words in this thread and tried them out in Google Trends, looking at 2004-present. **Egregious** has clearly trending up, while **gravitas**? Not so much. > > **Cuck** was the big “winner“, however. Here’s a link to that specific word if you want a quick path to Google Trends. God I love the Internet. (When I don’t hate it) > > [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Cuck](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Cuck) > > ETA: Google Trends won’t tell you absolute popularity, by the way, but it will show you trends. Everything indexes to its highest level of use, indexed to 100. I can’t believe I wasn’t aware that you could do this with Trends. Thanks! (You now have my unshakeable fealty) ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962/40 "2020-03-06T14:44:41Z")
Once in every four years, around about late winter, the word _winnowing_, responding to some sound unheard to human ears, awakes from its long and fitful slumber, climbs aboveground, breathes unaccustomed air, blinks at the blinding sun, gathers together with others of its kind, swarms, multiplies in its thousands, yea its tens of thousands, its uncountable multitudes, and all in a rush, migrates across this parched and frozen land from Iowa to New Hampshire to Nevada to South Carolina. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it crawls belowground once again, biding its time and conserving its force, dormant again until some new unheard sound signals once again the beginning of the next frenetic cycle. Such is the majesty of nature. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-have-suddenly-become-very-popular/848962.md?page=3)