#Wordsmiths

[beardedmrbean]

[jaggedjawjosh]

Empathy is my compass; it guides me to uplift others, reminding me that kindness is the light that brightens the darkest of paths.

[artsy-19]

[dbaydenny]

I longed to create,

sing, compose, be an artist

possibilities

were faint, small improbable

leaving these few words for you.

.

D W Eldred

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Leanne Italie

November 27, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — 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. 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, editor at large Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

“We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,” he said ahead of Monday’s announcement of this year’s word.

“What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”

Sokolowski and his team don’t 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.”

This was the year of artificial intelligence, for sure, but also a moment when ChatGPT-maker OpenAI suffered a leadership crisis.

Musk himself, at February’s World Government Summit in Dubai, urged the heads of companies, politicians, ministers and other leaders to “speak authentically” on social media by running their own accounts.

“Can we trust whether a student wrote this paper? Can we trust whether a politician made this statement? We don’t always trust what we see anymore,” Sokolowski said.

“We sometimes don’t believe our own eyes or our own ears. We are now recognizing that authenticity is a performance itself.”

Merriam-Webster’s entry for “authentic” is busy with meaning.

There’s “not false or imitation: real, actual,” as in an authentic cockney accent.

There’s “true to one’s own personality, spirit or character.”

There’s “worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact.”

There’s “made or done the same way as an original.”

And, perhaps the most telling, there’s “conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.”

“Authentic” follows 2022’s choice of “gaslighting.”

And 2023 marks Merriam-Webster’s 20th anniversary choosing a top 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.

This year, the wordsmiths also filtered out numerous five-letter words because Wordle and Quordle players clearly use the company’s site in search of them as they play the daily games, Sokolowski said.

Sokolowski, a lexicologist, and his colleagues have a bevy of runners-up for word of the year that also attracted unusual traffic.

They include “X” (lookups spiked in July after Musk’s rebranding of Twitter), “EGOT” (there was a boost in February when Viola Davis achieved that rare quadruple-award status with a Grammy) and “Elemental,” the title of a new Pixar film that had lookups jumping in June.

Rounding out the company’s top words of 2023, in no particular order:

RIZZ: It’s slang for “romantic appeal or charm” and seemingly short for charisma.

Merriam-Webster added the word to its online dictionary in September and it’s been among the top lookups since, Sokolowski said.

KIBBUTZ: There was a massive spike in lookups for “a communal farm or settlement in Israel” after Hamas militants attacked several near the Gaza Strip on October 7.

The first kibbutz was founded circa 1909 in what is today Israel.

IMPLODE: The June 18 implosion of the Titan submersible on a commercial expedition to explore the Titanic wreckage sent lookups soaring for this word, meaning “to burst inward.”

“It was a story that completely occupied the world,” Sokolowski said.

DEADNAME: Interest was high in what Merriam-Webster defines as “the name that a transgender person was given at birth and no longer uses upon transitioning.”

Lookups followed an onslaught of legislation aimed at curtailing LGBTQ+ rights around the country.

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.

She uses her own experience of often being confused with feminist author and conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf as a springboard into a broader narrative on the crazy times we’re all living in.

CORONATION: King Charles III had one on May 6, sending lookups for the word soaring 15,681% over the year before, Sokolowski said.

Merriam-Webster defines it as “the act or occasion of crowning.”

DEEPFAKE: The dictionary company’s definition is “an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.”

Interest spiked after Musk’s lawyers in a Tesla lawsuit said he is often the subject of deepfake videos and again after the likeness of Ryan Reynolds appeared in a fake, AI-generated Tesla ad.

DYSTOPIAN: Climate chaos brought on interest in the word. So did books, movies and TV fare intended to entertain.

“It’s unusual to me to see a word that is used in both contexts,” Sokolowski said.

COVENANT: Lookups for the word meaning “a usually formal, solemn, and binding agreement” swelled on March 27, after a deadly mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.

The shooter was a former student killed by police after killing three students and three adults.

Interest also spiked with this year’s release of Guy Ritchie’s "The Covenant” and Abraham Verghese’s long-awaited new novel, “The Covenant of Water,” which Oprah Winfrey chose as a book club pick.

More recently, soon after U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson ascended to House speaker, a 2022 interview with the Louisiana congressman recirculated.

He discussed how his teen son was then his “accountability partner” on Covenant Eyes, software that tracks browser history and sends reports to each partner when porn or other potentially objectionable sites are viewed.

INDICT: Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on felony charges in four criminal cases in New York, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C., in addition to fighting a lawsuit that threatens his real estate empire.

[enchantingepics]

Story Prompt 71

There existed a bond between two individuals. One was a hardened figure, weathered by the trials of time and circumstance. The other, a compassionate soul, whose heart seemed to overflow with empathy for every passing moment.

"You always seem to have a heart for the ones in need," the weathered figure remarked, his voice tinged with a hint of bitterness.

The compassionate soul paused, turning to meet the gaze of his companion. "Isn't that what it means to be human? To feel for others, to share in their joys and sorrows?"

The other scoffed, a cynical edge creeping into his tone. "People die every day, yet you only seem to care when they're dying at my feet."

The words hung heavy in the air, a stark reminder of the divergent paths they had chosen. One, guided by duty and survival, hardened by the harsh realities of life. The other, driven by compassion and empathy, refusing to turn a blind eye to the suffering around him.

[mumbled-tea]

Undelivered letters

When time finishes the race before words do, and questions that always go unanswered. Amorphous unfinished pieces of poesy, always function as the residence of words.

Haphazard verse that is only practical to the poet, and poet who is only understood by a mother, Rest of the things that make no sense to anyone. The world is not easy, specially for the one alone.

Young perturbed girl was easy to convert evil. Won't you blame yourself to cover her in thorns? Got her to write letters those burning in fire, Now she is the player of fire, ruler of the burnt.

Screams of rage and pain that never left the walls never reached the betrayers or the rest of world. Ears of the guilty are closed, lips of prey are stapled. They failed in love that was of their own volition.

She never wanted to let her thorns reach others. But what about the prickle she got from someone? "Your wounds will hurt others is no excuse", they say. Then continue to turn her more and more hopeless.

[sholawilde]

[lekhjunction]

अगर पसंद हैं किताबें और गुलाबी नगरी से है प्यार तो जेएलएफ में पधारिए

जेएलएफ यानी जयपुर लिटरेचर फेस्टिवल ने बहुत कम समय में ही अपनी पहचान बना ली है। अब यह जयपुर का एक सिग्नेचर इवेंट बन चुका है। साल 2008 से शुरू हुआ किताबों का यह उत्सव हर साल जनवरी माह में आयोजित किया जाता है, जहां लेखक अपनी किताबों के साथ अपने रीडर्स के बीच मौजूद होते हैं। इस बार भी अदब की महफिल सजने को तैयार है। होटल क्लार्क्स आमेर में जेएलएफ 30 जनवरी से 3 फरवरी तक आयोजित किया जाएगा। इसमें आप किताबों के साथ-साथ म्यूजिकल स्टेज का भी आनंद ले सकते हैं...

पूरा आर्टिकल पढ़ने के लिए नीचे दिए गए लिंक पर क्लिक करें:

[iakshaysrivastava]

Step Into the World of Creative Expression!

Poetry Event – Now Live!

[hercurrentnovel]

The MADNESS of March!

Hello, readers and friends! March is here, and there is so much happening this month! This blog post is about all the happenings of March 2024. First of all, I have an announcement and a request. I Could Use Your Vote 🙂 Most of you are probably familiar with the March Madness NCAA games starting today. I entered a similar contest with my serialized novel Patches! We are in the fifth day of the…

[jaggedjawjosh]

With ambition as my compass, hope as my fuel, and creativity as my guide, I chart new paths to the dreams that light my soul.

[artsy-19]

[ideadeco]

Deep in the ocean

With telling eyes and expressive whispers Deep in the ocean, doubts fade away A glimpse of unspoken eternity It is just a kiss away Don't trust reality Dare to let time lose its hold Dare to surrender Dare to fall in love Sea waves, Are the answer © Areti Vassou / Poetry Collection: Dare

[chardaearchive]

Untitled

When the last light peaks at the grave of the horizon, and reality becomes unmasked by the suns glare,

the last bodies lay to rest,

buried in sacramental ceremony,

the tenebrosity of waning hours inspire acquiescence

light fragments turn to shadows in sprinkles

the night devours all in its path,

Nothingness.

-----------------------------------------------------------

this poem is written and edited by Chardae Hilson, this content should not be edited, copied, or redistributed without my written consent. If you reblog, thank you but PLEASE give me all credit.

[saturdaysentiments]

Wordsmiths

💡Revitalize the strength of your words 💡Anoint with your words 💡Love with your words 💡Stand firm in your word 💡Keep your word 💡Heal with your words As always my beautiful people, stay prayed up