It’s that time of year when dictionaries shoot their shot about six weeks too early and announce their word of the year. I say six weeks too early because November just started and there’s still plenty of year left.
It’s like declaring something the best movie of the year in March. (I have seen this done.) It’s a low bar by this point, and there’s still plenty of time for something better to come along.
Still, Halloween was on Friday, and I started seeing Christmas decorations by Sunday, so maybe the end of the year is closer than I realized.
Best, most important word of the year for the entire year, and we still have seven weeks left. Too many baseball teams can tell you not to pack it in at the bottom of the 7th inning, but that’s what these dictionaries have done.
To start, Dictionary.com irritated everyone over the age of 25 by naming a set of numbers as their word of the year. Saying they’re "bowing to global trends" (translation: we’re gutless cowards) and the constant pestering of their grandkids, they named "67" as the word of the year.
Not sixty-seven, mind you. But "six seven."
It’s not a "word" because it’s two words. If it were hyphenated, we could argue about whether it's one word or two, but we don’t get to enjoy that. Instead, it’s a "term" or a "phrase."
Also, it’s not a word, it’s a number. I’ll accept that "six seven" is a single word before I ever accept "67" as one. It’s the same lunacy as, "Well, actually, a tomato is technically a fruit."
I also want to gnash my teeth and rend my garments at Dictionary.com’s choice because "six seven" is the most annoying word they could have picked. And I’m including that time the Cambridge dictionary added "skibidi" to its corpus.
"Six seven" has befuddled, bewildered, and bemused anyone over the age of 18 because it doesn’t mean anything. It has no meaning. It doesn’t refer to anything. It’s not the term that appears between "six six" and "six eight." It’s not a reference to someone’s jersey number or height; it’s just some nonsense kids like to say.
Mention 67 around kids under 12, and they all start chanting "Six seven! Six seven!" like they’re in a cult and you asked who’s going to save them from the coming meteor shower. But ask them what it means, and they’ll tell you it doesn’t mean anything. They just like saying it.
Ask adults what it means, and they look just as baffled as if you asked them to find the meaning of life in a block of cheese.
"My kid just keeps saying 'Six seven! Six seven!' even if I just say the number six," a friend told me. She imitated him by moving her arms and shaking her body like one of the wild and crazy guys. "He just keeps doing that and saying 'Six seven!'"
It’s a growing and irritating trend. A bunch of grade schoolers shuffling along, slack-jawed, chanting "Six seven! Six seven!" over and over before switching over to, "Brains, brains!"
Meanwhile, the Collins Dictionary over in Scotland has named "vibe coding" their word of the year for 2025.
"Vibe coding" is the term for using artificial intelligence and natural language to write computer code. You don’t actually have to know how to code; you just have to be able to tell your favorite AI what it is you want, and it will write the code to do that.
"Create an app that tells all of my creditors that I’ve died and didn’t leave a forwarding address."
"Write an app that’s like Tinder for pizza."
"Build an app that empties my employer’s bank account and puts the money in mine."
With vibe coding, you can create your ideal app, website, or platform without knowing anything about how to make it. You just go with the flow, and the AI will take care of the important details, like actually writing the code. You just sit back and drink little umbrella drinks.
As the Collins Dictionary website says, you’re "programming by vibes, not variables." It’s like firing up a 3D printer and saying, "Print me a functioning Ferrari Roma with refrigerated cupholders and a Blaupunkt stereo." You don’t have to know how to design a car, build a car, or even drive a car; you just have to be able to write a decent prompt, and bada-boom, bada-bing, you have a car.
Now, to be fair, a vibe-coded app will be rather buggy and fall short of what you’re trying to do, but we couldn’t even do this three years ago. Imagine what life will be like in a few more years when AI is able to write any code that does anything properly, correctly, and without error.
Eventually, this could bring about the collapse of the programmer economy and even lead to the deep fragmentation of the app world, where everyone vibe-codes their own app rather than buying someone else’s. This will lead to fraud, lawsuits, and millions of useless apps cluttering up the Internet and rendering it useless.
I give it six, seven years.
Photo credit: Micheletb (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.