The Good Word
Keep up with our crossword editor, Caleb Madison, as he dives deep into the most interesting words and phrases of the moment. Sign up for the newsletter here.
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Illustration by Tyler Comrie Why AI Doesn’t Get Slang
And why that’s a good thing
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Illustration by The Atlantic A Slow Descent Into Devilish Difficulty
Our new print crossword puzzle puts a fresh narrative spin on a classic.
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Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Getty Meta Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does
You might be a hipster if you’re mistaking abstraction for transcendence.
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Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Getty How ‘I’m Dead’ Became a Good Thing
Dying of laughter is an exaggeration, but something about it has rung true over the centuries.
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Katie Martin / The Atlantic; Getty Trolling’s Surprising Origins in Fishing
A method once used by mythology experts has turned painfully aggressive.
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Getty Why People Can’t Stop Adding lol to Texts
It makes virtual communication feel more human.
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Prisma / Alamy Why We’re Calling Everything a ‘Hellscape’
The word captures our relationship to the daily chaos of recent years.
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Everett Are You Using Gaslight Correctly?
One rule of thumb can help determine whether the word is being diluted.
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Gabriela Pesqueira / The Atlantic What Makes Someone ‘A Lot’?
On a surplus of selfhood in relation to acceptable social standards of interaction
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Getty The True Meaning of Happiness
What’s the haps on the ultimate pursuit? Ask the Vikings.
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Getty; The Atlantic The Two Most Dismissive Words on the Internet
How to instantly end an argument—or maybe just start a new one
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Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock / Getty; De Agostini / Getty The Crucial Difference Between Cheesy and Corny
And what our strong neural associations with physical taste have to do with it
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Getty The Rap Catchphrase With Metaphysical Roots
How “it’s lit” captured an era’s pop-culture energy
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The Atlantic Why We’re All in a Shmood
The Yiddishism kids love
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The Atlantic What Love Meant in 4500 B.C.
The Copper Age nomads on the Eurasian steppes might have understood the Beatles.
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The Atlantic How Canceled Reached Peak Semantic Power
The metaphorical crossing-out dates back to antiquity.
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Lambert / Hulton Archive / Getty Why Everything Online Is Suddenly Cringe
The internet’s new social norms mean there are countless new ways to be humiliated.
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The Atlantic How a Crossword Editor Plays Wordle
It doesn’t have the richness of a crossword, but I play it religiously.
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Getty; The Atlantic Why We’re All Shooketh
The term is online slang of biblical proportions.
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Araki Koman Where Marx Meets Migos
The rap trio’s usage of bougie preserves the philosopher’s original intention.
