Caitlin and Trent chat with linguistics scholars Savithry Namboodiripad and Daniel Midgley on what word most exemplifies 2025. Was it a new coinage? A pre-existing word that gained a new meaning or usage this year? A word that seemed to be on everybody's lips in 2025?

Resources:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year

"6 7" song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07xpV4ix2K8

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/27/more-than-20-of-videos-shown-to-new-youtube-users-are-ai-slop-study-finds

https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/12/03/and-the-economists-word-of-the-year-for-2025-is

https://www.dictionary.com/articles/word-of-the-year-2025

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

https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-dictionary-reveals-word-of-the-year-2025

https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/collins-word-of-the-year-2025-ai-meets-authenticity-as-society-shifts/

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2147118/is-that-grocery-product-really-canadian-or-is-it-maple-washing

"getting sendy" song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYAQEJyqR7E

group 7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/10/27/tiktoks-group-7-meme-explained/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/lore

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/unc

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/chopped

https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/huzz

https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-the-performative-male-how-young-men-are-experimenting-with-masculinity-online-268742

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051221126040

https://dailyillini.com/opinions-stories/columns-opinions/culture/2025/10/25/opinion-unmasking-performative-male/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kianbakhtiari/2025/09/28/performative-males-gen-z-irony-and-the-death-of-sincerity/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/us/rapture-tiktok-sept-23.html

Epstein's email simulator https://www.jmail.world/

https://othermeans.io/p/the-glonzo-strategy

https://www.theverge.com/policy/798491/frog-portland-trump-national-guard

https://the-monsters.fandom.com/wiki/The_Monsters

https://lafufu.art/blog/labubu-vs-lafufu

https://www.thelist.com/1817157/what-is-mar-a-lago-face-who-has-tried-the-trend/

https://bsky.app/profile/canadiandictionary.bsky.social/post/3m7tf3jm2fc2c

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oprah-podcast-no-contact-adult-children-parents_n_69389e85e4b0fb6244b0daa8

https://fortune.com/2025/12/29/trump-tariffs-cost-25000-per-month-small-business-importers-center-american-progress/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us/politics/doge-musk-trump-analysis.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-doge-government-spending-2025-b2890243.html

https://www.vox.com/culture/376401/r-word-slur-return-euphemism-treadmill-cycle

https://www.lawdork.com/p/the-kavanaugh-stop-50-days-later

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/30/politics/trump-taco-angry-tariff

https://www.buzzfeed.com/abbyzinman/canadians-elbows-up-explainer

https://pen.org/banned-words-list/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2025/03/15/these-197-terms-may-trigger-reviews-of-your-nih-nsf-grant-proposals/

https://www.dailydot.com/memes/everythings-computer-trump-quote-meme/

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trump-promises-harsher-ice-crackdowns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/27/chatgpt-suicide-openai-raine/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/snap-welfare-queen-ai-memes-1235460824/

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/10022/who-coined-the-phrase-rapid-unscheduled-disassembly#10219

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/rapid-unplanned-disassembly-rud

https://becauselanguage.com/131-wotwoty-2025/

Trent and Caitlin catch up with Greg Sargent from The New Republic about his recent piece exploring the family history and ideology of Stephen Miller. How did the product of Russian Jewish refugees come to see today's refugees as incapable of integration in American society? What are the white nationalist positions on who is a real American, and how does Miller navigate his position in relation to those ideologies? Why do these unlovable jerks insist on the myth that community and empathy are suicidal?

Resources:

The New Republic: https://newrepublic.com

The Daily Blast Podcast: https://newrepublic.com/podcasts

Greg's piece on Miller: https://newrepublic.com/article/204191/stephen-miller-maga-terror-state-dark-plot

Stephen Miller on Somali immigrants: https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/11/politics/stephen-miller-trump-immigration-law-somalia

Facts about Somali community in MN: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/5-things-to-know-about-the-somali-community-in-minnesota-after-trumps-attacks

Hatemonger: https://bookshop.org/a/115699/9780062986726

When The Clock Broke: https://bookshop.org/a/115699/9781250390417

Furious Minds: https://bookshop.org/a/115699/9780691255262

DHS Twitter Account: https://archive.ph/Vg8c7

Stephen Miller's cousin: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stephen-miller-cousin-alisa-kasmer/

Caitlin and Trent speak with Mark Copelovitch, a political science professor from University of Wisconsin–Madison. They discuss the problem of a world power going rogue, the lack of viable responses for countries like Venezuela and Denmark, and the costs to international trust when the US is so unreliable.

Resources:

https://polisci.wisc.edu/staff/mark-copelovitch/

https://www.markcopelovitch.com/

https://bsky.app/profile/mcopelov.bsky.social

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfXZxn2z8U0

https://archive.is/OriWG