Terminology - Oxford Dictionary WOTY 2024 - by popular vote

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

And the winner is... brain rot! Shortlisted together with the terms dynamic pricing, demure, lore, slop and romantasy, the people have spoken.

As a reminder, the Oxford definition for brain rot is:  

Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also something characterized as leading to such deterioration.

Reference

Oxford Word of the Year 2024

https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/

Terminology - Allbirds®

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

If you are wondering where the name 'Allbirds®' comes from, here is the myth of its origins.  Tim Brown, one the company founders, and no longer CEO, is from New Zealand. The name  Allbirds® is a nod to New Zealand, and the fact that when the island was first discovered, no land mammals lived there. New Zealand was “all birds”. All birds including some species that do not fly, such as the kiwi, New Zealand’s national bird. Other flightless birds inhabiting the island include penguins and the kakapo. The mao, also flightless, became extinct.

Reference

Allbirds® (website)
https://www.allbirds.com/

Oh, patents! Tree Breezers® design

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Allbirds® Tree Breezers® pump was also granted a US design patent. The US design patent, USD891073S, titled Footwear, was awarded on July 28, 2020, to eight inventors: Dennice Quijano Barerra, Timothy Brown, Lisa Halbower-Fenton, James Romero, Talia Rapier, April Gourdie, Jad Finck and Jamie S. McLellan. The patent was assigned to Allbirds® Inc.

As a reminder, per the provisions of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (MPEP), a US design patent protects the ornamental properties of an invention, or how the invention looks. In contrast, a US utility patent protects the functional properties of an invention, or how the invention works, and/or is manufactured.

Below, the patent Figure 1 shows a perspective view of the inventive design, together with an image of a marketed Allbirds® Tree Breezers® pump. The dashed lines, marking the sole and the heel tab, indicate portions of the shoe that are unprotected by this design patent.

References
Allbirds®
www.allbirds.com

USPTO Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (MPEP) – Chapt. 1502-01) – Distinction between design and utility patent.
https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1502.html

Oh, patents! Allbirds® (shoes)

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Allbirds® are all about sustainability with a net zero Mo.onshot set for 2025. A Mo.onshot that will make Allbirds® the first ever net zero shoes of the industry. As Allbirds puts it: “one small footprint for a shoe, one giant leap for the shoe industry."

With uppers made of New Zealand merino wool, or TENCEL™ Lyocell tree fiber, shoelaces made from recycled plastic bottles, eyelets made from Bio TPU (bio-based thermoplastic polyurethane), SweetFoam® soles made from sugar cane, and midsoles made with castor oil, each pair of Allbirds® uses natural materials to replace the high-carbon footprint of petroleum-based synthetics. The Allbirds® natural materials are also sourced from nature, using multiple best practices in sustainability. 

Best practices in sustainability, such as certification from the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC), to ensure that the trees harvested meet the strictest standards to protect forests, the animal habitat, and the people who depend on them. Likewise, the company works with organizations such as ZQ that monitor farming, land management, and animal welfare, when harvesting sheep wool in New Zealand. The Allbirds® company is also B-certified®, which means that it is a Business for Good, a for-profit company that meets high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.

Allbirds® are also designed to be “the most comfortable shoes in your closet” with optimized fit, cushioning, and breathability. Patented comfort with a stellar portfolio of testimonials, both from the press and individual customers.

For example, the women’s Tree Breezers®  (a knitted pump) has a patented elastic region all around the perimeter of an opening, designed to receive the user’s foot. This elastic region ensures comfort, support, and durability,  replacing laces or other means of securing the shoe on the user's foot. The US utility patent US11206899B2, titled Knit shoes with elastic region, recites the details of this invention. Assigned to Allbirds® Inc, the patent was awarded on December 28, 2021, to a group of eight inventors: Jamie McLellan, Thomas Jad Finck, Lisa Halbower-Fenton, James Romero, Timothy Brown, Dennice Quijano Barerra, Talia Rapier and April Gourdie.

Specifically, in light of the below-extracted patent Figures 2A, 2C, and 2D, the shoe 100, comprises a structural region 106 forming a cavity, an elastic region 104 at the border of the structural region 106, and a sole 108. In the unworn configuration depicted in Figure 2A, the elastic region 104 elevates both the front 222 and rear 224 sections of the tread surface 220 from the planar surface 228. Thus, the tensile force of the elastic region 104 pulls both the front 230 and rear 232 tips of the sole 108 inwards, causing them to curve towards the center of the shoe.

Conversely, in the worn configuration, depicted in Figure 2C with a wearer’s foot 110 inside the shoe, the intermediate 224, front 222 and rear 226 sections of the tread 220 become coplanar with the surface 228. In the worn configuration, depicted in Figure 2C, the elastic region 104 extends to the metatarsal bones, exerting a tensile force that supports the user's foot 110, while maintaining a wide opening. A tensile force, also exerted on the structural region 106 and the sole 108, different from that which is exerted in the unworn configuration. 

 

Figure 2D depicts the Detail 1-1 marked on Figure 1C. The Detail 1-1, shown in Figure 2D, illustrates the knitted ribs 236 and depressions 238, of the elastic region 104, on a border 234 with the structural region 106. Figure 2D also indexes the perimeter 116 of the elastic region 104, through which the wearer’s foot will enter the cavity of the shoe 100.

The patent further describes the features of the Tree Breezers® that improve performance, increase manufacturing efficiency, and provide environmental benefits, compared to traditional shoemaking. 

Below, the abstract of the invention.

A shoe may include an upper portion constructed from a continuous textile (e.g., a knit textile) that includes an elastic region and a structural region. The elastic region may be positioned about a perimeter of an opening into a cavity configured to receive a wearer's foot, and the elastic region may be configured to secure the shoe to a wearer's foot. The elastic region may have a first elasticity that is greater than a second elasticity of the structural region. In an unworn configuration, the elastic region may cause a tread surface of a sole of the shoe to have a continuous curvature. In a worn configuration, substantially all of an intermediate section of the tread surface may contact a surface on which the shoe is placed. The elastic region may improve the performance of the shoe, including the comfort and durability. [Abstract US11206899B2]

References

Allbirds® (website)

www.allbirds.com
B Corporation® Business for Good
https://usca.bcorporation.net/
Forest Stewardship Council®
https://fsc.org/en
Mo.onshot Recipe Book
https://tinyurl.com/3zwatxav
ZQ - The New Zealand Merino Company. Ltd.

https://www.discoverzq.com/

Terminology - Oxford WOTY 2024 -- Vote now!

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Celebrating 20 years of WOTTIES, Oxford is calling on the public to vote for the 2024 Word of the Year (WOTY).  As Susie Dent, Oxford resident dictionary expert, lexicographer, etymologist, Two Words game designer, and multiple-book author puts it:

 The choice is yours! There is no committee presiding over our language. It is a democracy. As much as some would like a linguistic government. We all are it.

Voting is open till November 28, 2024, at 3 pm (GMT).  Click on the QR code to vote! 

The following summarized definitions and rationales are quoted at the Oxford Dictionary site for the six 2024 WOTY candidates: 

dynamic pricing: The practice of varying prices for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions, in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand. According to Oxford, the term is a loan translation from the Swedish term “dynamiska prisbildning”. The term was coined by a Swedish economist, Gunnar Myrdal, in 1927, and then translated to English, in 1929, by another Swedish economist, named Erik Lindahl. Recently, the term has spiked in  high profile cases of online sales, involving the price of concert tickets. 

demure (adjective): Of a person, reserved or restrained in appearance or behavior. Of clothing, not showy, ostentatious or overly revealing. The earliest occurrence recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary, in 1377, was in reference to the sea being calm. Oxford recorded a recent spike, in 2024, after the term was used by Jools Lebron, a fierce diva influencer on TikTok. 

lore: A body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject at hand. According to Oxford observations, the term has been used recently in more engaged fandoms to refer to what surrounds a celebrity, book, film or character.  

brain rot: Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also something characterized as leading to such deterioration. In the Oxford corpus, recorded usage increased 250% in frequency, per one million words, between 2023 and 2024. 

slop: Art, writing, or other content generated using AI, shared and distributed online in a indiscriminate or intrusive way, and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic, or inaccurate. According to Oxford, the term appeared in use since the mid-nineteenth century to refer to nonsense or rubbish. In 2024, Oxford recorded a 332% increase in use of “slop” to refer to material produced by LLMs. Material seen as inaccurate or low quality, and increasingly visible. 

romantasy: A genre of fiction combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural, or adventure alongside a central romantic storyline. According to Oxford, the word originates, in 2008, at Random House Germany, as a translated genre label, from German, for romantic fantasy novels. In 2024, usage  spiked in discussions at the BookTok forum, on Tiktok. 

References

Oxford WOTY 2024 (YouTube video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKnx07Bsco 

Dent, S. (2024). Guilty by Definition: A Journey of Oxford past and present. London, UK: John Murray. 

-----  (2023). Interesting Stories about Curious Words: From Stealing Thunder to Red Herrings. London, UK: John Murray. 

----- (2022). Words from the Heart: An Emotional Dictionary. London, UK: John Murray.

----- (2020). Word Perfect: Etymological  Entertainment Every Day. London, UK: John Murray. 

----- (2016). Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain. London, UK: John Murray. 

----- (2009). What made the crocodile cry? 101 Questions about the English Language. London UK: John Murray. 

-----(2008). Words of the Year. London, UK: John Murray.

Susie Dent (Instagram)

https://www.instagram.com/susiedent/reel/DCY8Q3esUFA/

Susie Dent -That woman in the Dictionary Corner. (on X)

https://x.com/susie_dent?lang=en 

Two Words with Susie Dent  (Online and mobile game.) 

https://www.playtwowords.com/ 

Terminology – WOTTIES 2024 (2) Collins Dictionary WOTY shortlist

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann 

Shortlisted terms for the Word of the Year are always at least as interesting as the winner of them all. The following Collins Dictionary GIF and JPEG files each present one of the nine shortlisted terms for the 2024 Word of the Year. The terms are shown together with their Collins Dictionary definition. 

 

References
Collins Dictionary - WOTY 2024, Shortlisted words.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty

Collins Dictionary - The Language Lover's Blog.

https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/a-year-when-hedonism-and-anxiety-combine/

Terminology – WOTTIES 2024 (1) Collins Dictionary Word of the Year

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Collins Dictionary has selected the adjective ‘brat’ as the 2024 Word of the Year (WOTY). The noun ‘brat’ is hardly new, since it appears as early as the 1500s, in Songes & Sonettes, to express a child in contempt of the law, according to etymological information found in the Oxford English Dictionary. A meaning that has evidently evolved into a far more popular form of outlaw, combining rebellion, freedom, irreverence, and love. 

The term surged during a "brat summer" with the latest charli XCV, techno-pop, hit album, titled brat. Collins defines the adjective ‘brat’ as “characterized by a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude.” On the wild side of this transformed use of the term, the political slogan “Kamala is brat” also went viral.

Below, the Collins GIF file, animating the adjective ‘brat’, the Collins Dictionary, 2024 WOTY.

References

brat. Studio album produced by charli XCV et al. Released by Atlantic Records, June 7, 2024. 
Collins Dictionary - WOTY 2024.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty
Collins Dictionary - The Language Lover's Blog.
https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/a-year-when-hedonism-and-anxiety-combine/

Interlude ! Do you speak Gaultier?

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Jean Paul Gaultier website is running a linguistic experiment powered by AI. The experiment consists in collecting French language samples. To participate you might record yourself, and/or listen to others speaking. This is part of Jean Paul Gaultier’s commitment to diversity, in this case a celebration of linguistic diversity. 

Click on the Divine perfume bottle to participate in the study, and enjoy!

Reference

Jean Paul Gaultier (website)

https://fashion.jeanpaulgaultier.com/en-us