Analysis: The words, metaphors and ideas we use to describe experiences and phenomenons may not necessarily be able to explain them
The Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2025, 'rage bait', joins the 2024 term 'brain rot' in offering a lexical insight into the cultural shifts, patterns and concerns of the year. Both expressions reflect our neological attempts to describe and communicate what it means, what it feels like, to be human in an increasingly tech-driven world.
Words in the Oxford English Dictionary give a bird’s eye view of developments over time in history (the word U-boat was coined in 1916; blitzkrieg in 1939; and 9/11 in 2001); culture (‘hippy’ was coined in 1953, ‘Trekkie’ in 1976 and ‘gangtsa’ in 1988) and even fashion (‘Wonderbra’ was first recorded in 1947, ‘miniskirt’ in 1969, and ‘power dressing’ in 1980).
Few words are coined in isolation and many neologisms lean on metaphor to capture something important about the period in time. The word ‘bait’, for example, simply means an attractive morsel of food, but compounded with ‘rage’ is repurposed to metaphorically describe the ‘baiting’ of individuals online with content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with David McCullagh, what do words of the year like 'rage bait' and 'brain rot' tell us about our evolving relationship with technology?
Few of us realistically believe our brain is decaying in our skulls as we mindlessly consume online material, yet ‘brain-rot’ is a powerful way of describing the unpleasant suspicion that hours spent scrolling ‘Cat vs Christmas tree’ videos on TikTok is contributing to mental decline. In this way, metaphor enables us to name and illuminate abstract or complex phenomena by drawing on familiar, concrete, concepts such as ‘bait’ or ‘rot’.
The metaphors we draw on often offer an insight into the zeitgeist of the time. For example, the words we use to describe human distress have changed significantly over time, from ‘insane’ (stemming from the Latin for unsound), to ‘mental health’, which locates suffering in the mind and the domain of healthcare and medical professions. The words we use can point to the sources of our suffering. The word ‘mad’, for example, stems from the Old English word ‘wod’ meaning frenzied or possessed and suggests a demonical or supernatural source, while ‘lunacy, a word that was in use in Irish legislation right up until 2015, reflects beliefs about the pernicious effects of the moon and lunar cycles.
In their ability to condense more multifaceted experiences into a single, memorable, idea, metaphors can be both useful and misleading. While the various ‘life hacks’ we are offered to ‘reset’ before we ‘crash’ or run out of ‘bandwidth’ may be helpful in negotiating an unwieldly workload, it is important to stop and consider where the idea of humans as machines to be optimised for maximum productivity comes from and whose interests it really serves?
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with David McCullagh, freelance journalist Kate Demolder on 'rage bait' being selected as word of the year
In her book Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth, psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff charts the societal effects of the simple idea that depression is the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. Not only, as Moncrieff demonstrates, does this idea lack solid scientific evidence, it has reinforced a simplistic, biomedical view of sadness and opened the door to widespread long-term antidepressant use.
This is an example of how the words, metaphors and ideas we use don’t just help people describe and convey complex experiences, but actively shape our beliefs, decisions and explanations in ways that extend far beyond what the evidence supports.
Those of us subject to ‘rage bait’ are unlikely to believe ourselves hapless prey, or to believe that our brains are rotting like potatoes as we stare at short-form videos on our phones. However, it is helpful to remember that the words we coin this year enable us to describe a phenomenon, but not necessarily to explain it.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
