Quiz: Do You Speak 2024?

A varied assortment of words entered (or re-entered) the lexicon this year. How well do you know them?​

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By Miya Lee and Kendall Blomfield

Dec. 24, 2024

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Love it or hate it, language is always evolving. This year, the words of the moment seemed to morph at an ever-faster pace, thanks to the momentum of TikTok trends.

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New adjectives emerged. Classic terms were revived, and some were used in entirely new contexts.

Did you keep up? Before we turn the calendar page, take a moment to test your knowledge of 2024 terminology with our quiz.

 

1 of 10

What is “slop”?

• a messy photo dump on Instagram

• a slew of poorly edited TikToks

• unwanted dating app messages

• low-quality, A.I.-generated content

• defunct internet domain names

Nope! The correct answer is “low-quality, A.I.-generated content.”

“Google suggesting that you could add nontoxic glue to make cheese stick to a pizza? That’s slop,” Benjamin Hoffman wrote in June after Google started offering broad A.I. overviews in answer to search queries.

The term “slop” refers to any kind of questionable or shoddy A.I. content — whether in art, social media or search results.

 

2 of 10

The adverse effect of consuming too much online content is called:

• Skibidi toilet

• sludge

• Silicon Valley syndrome

• brain rot

• digital degeneration

• galaxy gas

Correct! The answer is “brain rot,” which was recently named Oxford University Press's Word of the Year.

“The term refers primarily to low-value internet content and the effects caused by spending too much time consuming it,” Jessica Roy wrote in her June 2024 article. “Example: ‘I’ve been watching so many TikToks, I have brainrot.’”

 

3 of 10

In 2024, someone who couldn’t stop talking was called:

• a gasbag

• a yapper

• a yipper

• a yopper

• a sigma

• a Talk Tuah

Correct! If you couldn’t keep quiet this year, you were likely called “a yapper.”

“To yap, in modern parlance, is simply to talk … a lot, often about something of little importance,” Madison Malone Kircher wrote in March when the term started surging in popularity.

“Though it wasn’t always referred to as such, yapping has long been a hallmark of social media, where content creators, particularly on YouTube, are known to film longer videos, potentially allowing for more advertising revenue.”

 

4 of 10

Which of the following items is most likely to be called “preppy” by someone in Gen Alpha?

• khaki pants

• Sperry boatshoes

• a Vineyard Vines polo shirt

• a Stanley tumbler

• a tortoiseshell headband

• a J. Crew cableknit cashmere sweater

Correct! For many in Gen Alpha, the term “preppy” no longer carries its old connotations.

“My daughter’s ‘preppy’ is not my idea of preppy — the prep of actual New England prep schools, of frayed Oxford cloth and WASPy noblesse oblige,” Mireille Silcoff wrote in February.

“Those iterations are now known, in the TikTok world, as ‘old preppy.’ The new sort fills its Pinterest pages with something else: colorful Stanley mugs, tiered pink micro-minis, bulbed makeup mirrors and Brazilian Bum Bum Creams. Part of what makes it hard to describe is that it is not rooted in any specific culture; it seems to be largely about being fun and a girl and buying things packaged with a bright color on a white background. There is no deep ethos to it, no shared experience other than posting videos of shopping hauls or makeup routines — pastimes usually engaged in alone, in your bedroom.”

 

5 of 10

True or False: In 2024, a “sundress” could refer to both a flowy, multicolored, sleeveless, knee-length dress and a form-fitting, monochrome, sleeved, ankle-length dress.

• True

• False

Correct! This summer, there was a heated online debate on what exactly constitutes a “sundress.”

“I own every dress,” said Jacqueline Lee in Tiktok video that’s now been viewed more than 10 million times. “Which one is this one of the sun?”

Is a “sundress” defined by its length, pattern, material, sleeves or lack of sleeves? Can you call any dress a “sundress”? Alas, there was no consensus. As Cara Schacter wrote in July, “It may be that the sundress is more of an idea than an article of clothing.”

 

6 of 10

In 2024, “rawdogging” may have referred to (select all that apply):

• Only eating uncooked meat.

• Sexual intercourse without a condom.

• Eating a hot dog without a bun.

• Choosing to experience something unpleasant without any distraction or comfort.

• Shaving all bodyhair after "No Shave November."

Done

Correct! This year, people began to use the sexually explicit term in a variety of new contexts.

“The slang term, which has historically been used to refer to sexual intercourse without a condom, has been adopted to describe almost any activity accomplished without the assistance of a buffer,” Jessica Roy wrote in July. “Now, you can rawdog the flu by refusing medication; you can rawdog cooking by not using a recipe; you can even rawdog life, by being sober.”

 

7 of 10

Someone who has multiple romantic relationships, has no intention of any of those relationships becoming exclusive yet keeps each relationship separate is:

• single

• polyamorous

• solo polyamorous

• ethically nonmonogamous

Close, but not quite! The correct term is “solo polyamorous.” It is a specific kind of polyamory characterized by self-prioritization and no shared partners. In other forms of polyamory, for instance in a throuple or polycule, partners are shared.You can read more about “solo polyamory” in Gina Cherelus’s February 2024 article.

 

8 of 10

Which popular 2024 term is unlike the others?

• tradwife

• boysober

• 4B movement

• decentering men

Correct. In this list, “tradwife” is the outlier.

In her August 2024 article, Amy X. Wang defined a “tradwife,” a shortened version of “traditional wife,” as “a contemporary woman who hews to the kind of old-school gender norms you might find in Victorian etiquette books or 1950s propaganda.” Tradwives, she explained, “eschew careers, voluntarily devoting themselves to household chores and the needs of family, often deferring decision-making to their husbands.”

The other terms — “boysober” “4B movement,” and “decentering men” — all relate to a growing dissatisfaction with, despair about and even disavowal of romantic relationships with men.

 

9 of 10

“Brat” is to “Demure” as …

• ...“Roses” are to “Red”

• ... “Peas” are to “Pods”

• ... “Mogging” is to “Looksmaxxing”

• ... “Yin” is to “Yang”

• ... “Logs” are to “Fire”

Correct! “Yin” is to “Yang” as “Brat” is to “Demure”

When the pop star Charli XCX released her sixth studio album, “Brat,” this summer, the word itself went viral. Charli called Vice President Kamala Harris brat. On CNN, Jake Tapper said he aspired to be brat. The term was used to connote irreverence, bravado, self-celebration, sexiness and wry humor. “In popular culture, it typically points to the youthful and indulgent,” Emma Madden wrote in June.

The word “demure” also rose to prominence this summer after Jools Lebron, a creator on TikTok, posted a viral video about how to be demure at work. Suddenly, people were calling everything from the way someone brushed their teeth to the way they took their coffee “demure.”

“Every few weeks, a new word starts getting repeated ad nauseam online in ways that only sort of relate to its original definition. Last week, that word was ‘brat.’ This week, it’s basically the exact opposite: ‘demure.’” Callie Holtermann explained in a Styles desk chat this August.

Roses are red, peas are in pods, mogging is a way of looksmaxxing, and logs help make a fire. Yin and Yang are famous opposites, and now “brat” and “demure” apparently are too.

 

10 of 10

When the second “Wicked” movie comes out on Thanksgiving weekend in 2025, any of the following could be a fan’s reaction, except:

• I’m holding space

• Bet

• We are so back

• Ohio

Correct! In April, Madison Malone Kircher reported on the ubiquity of the phrase “We are so back” as a term of celebration.

“When you’re back, things are good. You’re on top of the world,” Ms. Kircher wrote.

The phrase “holding space” is forever linked to the Wicked franchise and could similarly be used to celebrate the second film’s release. During the press tour for the first film, the journalist Tracy E. Gilchrist’s interview with its stars went viral after she said, “I’ve seen this week people are taking the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and really holding space with that and feeling power in that.” Whether anyone fully understood the phrase itself, a meme connected to the film was born.

“Bet” is a positive affirmation, so if you’re someone who is excited about another Wicked movie, it works.

In 2024, “Ohio” took on a less positive meaning. No longer just a state, “Ohio” means something more similar to weird, bad or cringe.

Score

8 out of 10