紐時賞析／牛津年度代表字出爐 「魅」掀起迷因熱

Oxford’s 2023 Word of the Year Is … ‘Rizz’

牛津2023年度代表字是…「魅」

It’s official. Oxford University Press, the world’s second-oldest academic press and publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, has rizz.

正式公布了。出版牛津英文辭典、全世界第二古老的學術出版社牛津大學出版社，有魅。

Or at least, like the rest of us over a certain age, it’s trying to get some. “Rizz” — Gen Z (or is it Gen Alpha?) slang for “style, charm or attractiveness,” or “the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner” — has been named as Oxford’s 2023 Word of the Year, beating out contenders including situationship, prompt, de-influencing and (yes) Swiftie.

或至少，就像我們這些已過特定年齡的人士，它正試著獲得一些。「魅」是Ｚ世代（或阿爾法世代？）的流行用語，意思是「風格、魅力或吸引力」或「吸引戀人或性伴侶的能力」，它獲選為牛津2023年度代表字，擊敗一眾競爭對手，包括情境式戀愛、提示詞、反影響力以及（沒錯）泰勒絲粉。

“Rizz” was first recorded in 2022, according to Oxford. But it went viral in June, after actor Tom Holland, in an interview with BuzzFeed, said: “I have no rizz whatsoever. I have limited rizz.”

據牛津，「魅」的相關紀錄最早出現於2022年，但6月突然爆紅，原因是演員湯姆霍蘭德在一場BuzzFeed專訪中說：「我根本沒魅。我魅有限」。

That spawned a crush of memes, as overall usage surged by a factor of about 15 over the previous year, according to Oxford’s data. Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, the dictionary division, said this year’s choice reflects the way social media has increased the pace of language change exponentially. Plus, he said, the word simply has … rizz.

這催生了一股迷因熱，據牛津資料，該字的整體使用量在過去一年內激增約15倍。牛津辭典部門牛津語言主任格拉斯沃說，今年的代表字反映社群平台如何急遽加快語言演變速度，以及這個詞本身就很有…魅。

“One of the reasons it’s moving from being a niche social media phrase into the mainstream is, it’s just fun to say,” he said.

他說：「它能從社群平台小眾用語進入主流的原因之一是，它唸起來很好玩」。

Oxford’s Word of the Year is based on usage evidence drawn from its continually updated corpus of more than 22 billion words, gathered from news sources across the English-speaking world. The selection, according to Oxford, is meant “to reflect the ethos, mood or preoccupations” of the preceding year.

牛津年度代表字是根據其語料庫的使用資料而來，該語料庫從英語系國家新聞來源蒐集超過220億個詞彙且不斷更新。根據牛津，這項選拔賽旨在「反映過去一年來的思潮、心情或關注的事物」。

This year, the public was invited to cut the shortlist list in half by weighing in on four head-to-head thematic pairings. (Some 30,000 people voted, Oxford said.) Oxford’s team then made the final selection.

今年，民眾被邀請針對四組一對一主題組合表達想法，淘汰決選名單中的一半選手。（牛津說約3萬人投票。）之後再由牛津團隊做最終選擇。

One pairing, “Swiftie” vs. “de-influencing,” related to celebrity culture. Others reflected personal characteristics (“rizz” vs. “beige flag,” a characteristic suggesting a partner is boring), the changing world (“prompt” vs. “heat dome”) and relationships (“parasocial” vs. “situationship”).

其中一個組合是「泰勒絲粉」對決「反影響力」，與名人文化有關。其他組合則反映了人格特質（「魅」對決「米色旗」，後者指個性無趣的伴侶）、變遷世界（「提示詞」對決「熱芎」）以及情感關係（「擬社會互動」對決「情境式戀愛」）。

Grathwohl guessed, correctly, that the contest would ultimately come down to “Swiftie" vs. “rizz.” Which it did, but only after “de-influencing” (the practice of discouraging people from buying particular products, or reducing their consumption more generally) made a strong run at knocking out “Swiftie.”

格拉斯沃猜測，冠軍賽將由「泰勒絲粉」對決「魅」，他沒猜錯。比賽最終是由這兩個詞彙競爭，但在那之前，「反影響力」（促使他人不買特定商品的行為，或更廣義地使人減少消費） 曾奮力一搏，試圖扳倒「泰勒絲粉」。

文／Jennifer Schuessler 譯／陳曉慈

說文解字看新聞

【陳曉慈】

每個時期都有專屬的「時代精神」（Zeitgeist），若以年為單位，往往以年度代表字（word of the year）呈現。台灣今年是「缺」，英語系國家通常由幾家權威辭典選出，包括英國的牛津、劍橋、柯林斯，美國的韋氏，堪稱百花齊放。

韋氏、劍橋和柯林斯的2023年度代表字分別為authentic、hallucinate和AI，三詞皆與人工智慧相關，凸顯ChatGPT、Deepfake等AI技術在過去一年掀起全球狂潮、成為舉世焦點，並引發人類重新思索真相與表象的分界；易言之，「眼見為憑」的概念已被顛覆。

Rizz是charisma的縮略詞（abbreviation），是透過造詞法（word formation）中的縮減而得，較常見的縮減方法是取字首或字尾，如exam／examination、phone／telephone，取詞中的例子有fridge／refrigerator、flu/influenza。

名詞corpus源自拉丁文的軀體尤其是屍體，也可指文章全集：Jane Austen's corpus is modest in number but magnificent in achievement.重質不重量。