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
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.