Words: From Skibidi to Tough Toenails

I’m A Word Nerd – and Happily So

My dad was a man who spoke in a straightforward and easily understandable way, but he always had an interest in words. Whereas most people wake up in the morning and report on their dream, he’d talk instead about what word had come to him in the night. Regarding word usage, he thought it important to talk up to people, not down, and suggested we use big words when we knew them. And he followed his own advice like when he called my mom’s snoring a cacophony.

Loving that man as I did, it is easy to see where my interest in words was born.

I was tickled, therefore to learn about Lake Superior State University and the list of Banished Words they publish annually. Since 1976, words on their list have been singled out “for [their] Mis-Use, Over-Use, and General Uselessness”.

I read about the list in the Washington Post in an article by Ron Charles. He tells us that LSSU receives submissions for worn-out-words from across the globe. And indeed, they welcome world-wide entries. Using six of the ten banished words on the 2025 list, Ron Charles encourages us to join the fun: “Is there a useless word or phrase which people utilize in this era that makes you 100% cringe? IYKYK! You can submit nominations for the 2026 Banished Words List here. Period.”

Beyond the six italicized words above, these words complete the list for 2025:

• Game Changer
• Dropped
• Sorry Not Sorry
• Skibidi

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That word, skibidi is interesting because it is mentioned – favorably – in another word-related article that got my interest recently. It was in a story in USA Today about the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2024 “Word of the Year.” The winner of that award, receiving more than 37,000 votes world-wide, is a Generation Alpha slang term, brain rot. It means the deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state due to too much low-quality online content.

The article acknowledges that recent words-of-the-year have come from Gen Z and Gen Alpha internet slang. Goblin mode in 2022 and rizz in 2023 are examples. It then goes on to list seven such terms that everyone needs to know. Skibidi is on that list! It is defined as, “a word used to start a convo, specifically a convo filled with brain rot.” (Huh?!)

The other words on that list are:

• Sigma – a successful, independent male
• Mog/mogging – to appear superior to someone
• Gyatt – a large rear end
• Mewing – an exercise to strengthen your jawline
• Rizz – charisma
• Fanum tax – a term used by a Twitch streamer (but what is a Twitch streamer?)

As I state that I find these words to be strange, I know I risk a dismissive response to my opinion from the younger generation. Perhaps an “Okay, Boomer” might be hurled in my direction. Or someone might say this is so “Ohio” of me. I’m usually not happy with put-downs, but as a baby boomer from Cincinnati, I’m literally ok with these.

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Sticking with skibidi, I would like to report that Merriam-Webster has not included it in their dictionary, though in a new section of their website for slang, they do talk about the word at length. The article credits the animated YouTube series called Skibidi Toilet (about villainous toilets with sinister human heads) with the origin of the word. This information stops my interest in the word immediately…

…But it does not diminish my interest in the Merriam-Webster website itself. I have been visiting it for over twenty years, since I learned about and subscribed to their Word-of-the-Day, which is vocabulary building at its finest. Their website also contains sections for Games, Word Play, Grammar & Usage, Rhymes, and of course the dictionary itself – and the thesaurus.

An article on their website about the word antidisestablishmentarianism talks about that word in detail and then explains why it is not included in their dictionary. This helps to explain why a word like skibidi hasn’t been added either.

To be entered in the dictionary, a word must meet three criteria – widespread usage, sustained usage, and meaningful usage. While the lexicographers can construe a meaning for the word from its component parts – opposition to depriving a legally established state church of its status – in a hundred years of research on the word, they only have three “citations” for the word’s use with that meaning. This does not constitute sustained or widespread use; thus the word is not in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Nor is skibidi, and amen to that.

As a side note, I am always on the lookout for Merriam-Webster to announce the new words they have added to the dictionary. In October, 2024, NBC posted a story about 200 new words being added. Included in the list are: touch grass, nepo baby, burrata, and MAGA.

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 While looking around on the Merriam-Webster site, I researched a word that would describe my interest – and my dad’s interest – in words. They tell me that we are logophiles. But I think that is too classy a word to describe us especially as I confess to a couple of words that were in our family vocabulary that would never make it into Merriam-Webster.

We were a family that never used four-letter words, so when we were disappointed we wouldn’t say the sh– or cr– word, our expletive was “nutsy-polesy.” Meanwhile, a playful scolding for turning down something at the dinner table was not “tough luck for you,” but “tough toenails” instead.

So, no, probably not logophiles, but certainly word nerds, and happily so!

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If you like my writing, please know that my newest book, Chai on Life, will be published April 1, 2025. Pre-order now on Amazon!