The Word That Defined an Era In December 2025, Merriam-Webster announced its Word of the Year. It was not a technical term, a political coinage, or a neologism born in academic journals. It was “slop“, defined as low-quality digital content that is usually produced in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. The American Dialect Society followed in January 2026, with over 300 linguists voting it their Word of the Year too. Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary had reached the same conclusion a month earlier. Three major lexicographic institutions, independently, chose the same word to describe the defining cultural phenomenon of our moment. The timing was not coincidental. In 2025, OpenAI’s Sora app,…