The word nerds behind the Oxford English Dictionary say they’ve cataloged more than 500,000 words. I s’pose I can be forgiven for missing “rizz.” The Oxford folks this week declared it word of the year.
I don’t object to “rizz” – as word of the year, in daily speech or in popular writing. I do object to what my ignorance of the word says about me.
Because “rizz” is cool. And if you’ve never heard or used the word, then you don’t have it.
And I want rizz.
Oxford says rizz is “style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner.” Some press reports described it more generally as the chemistry, good or bad, in social interactions.
How did I miss this word until now? It’s only a year or two old, Oxford says, and may have been derived from “charisma.” ChaRIZZma.
Yeah. I still don’t have it.
A better word to describe me is “lardhead.” OED editors found a citation from 1893 but added it to their dictionary only recently.
It means “foolish person.”
Not rizz.
Words about words
The Oxford comma goes to court
You, too, can be an apostrophe warrior
A gentle grammarian and her table
I deal with millions of words a week. When I heard “rizz” I scratched my befuddled and uncool old head and said, “What?” I never had encountered this word — written or spoken — in those millions weekly. Not even my cool and well-educated children have used it in my presence. Maybe those with “rizz” know the correct audience. I have added rizz to my mental dictionary (much smaller than Oxford’s) and now can say that I have read the word maybe a dozen times. I still have not heard anyone use it orally in a sentence. I will be listening in a focused effort to be “hip” (a word I know) to those with rizz.
Steve, thank you for joining me in the gallery of the uncool.