Dictionary.com has chosen ‘67’ (pronounced six seven) as their word of the year. I wondered how steep the competition was for this dubious honor, so I went to the internet. Were there any words of the classical sense – you know, words that weren’t digits? Yes, there were, but they didn’t win, and some would not be considered a word but a phrase. So, I guess if you’re dictionary.com, the field is wide open.

According to Bing, the words ‘67’ competed against were agentic (having to do with AI technologies), aura farming (cultivating one’s style for online attention – kind of like what I do here), Gen Z stare (think aloof or disengaged), and overtourism (which I can understand since I live in Central Florida.)

But evidently none of them could hold a candle to ’67.’ If you would like to impress or embarrass your teenager and try to work it into a sentence, I will provide a definition for you. SPOILER ALERT: It won’t be of much help, but here goes:

Definitions range from the height of a basketball player to an exclamation to so-so. (I told you it wouldn’t be helpful.)

Dictionary.com says, “Because of its murky and shifting usage, it’s an example of brain-rot slang and is intended to be nonsensical and playfully absurd.” Yes, even dictionary.com appears to have problems defining the… I want to say word, but I just can’t. It’s more like a meme, which is something that is usually funny and spreads quickly through the internet. Like ’67!’

This is why everyone should use Merriam-Webster. I’m confident they would not use brain-rot slang as the word of the year.

ABC News refers to it as a cultural inside joke. I think that sums it up nicely.

A few months ago, Bob and I were visiting our North Carolina kids and grandchildren. Our 17- (pronounced seventeen) year-old grandson, Jett, commented ‘67’ to something that was said, and the conversation went on for ten minutes as we tried to figure out if he was punking us. Eventually, we just rolled with it and threw it into the conversation whenever we deemed it appropriate. At those times Jett rolled with it, too, or at least his eyes did. An eye roll or a groan is as good as applause from a teenager, so we had fun with it.

The positive thing about ‘67’ is that it isn’t derogatory, as far as I can tell. So, I’ll try not to act my age (69) and smile at the nonsensicalness of it all. I would have had a lot more fun with it two years ago.