Vocabulary Spotlight | 3 Recently Added Words to Webster's Dictionary

In this episode of the A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack look at three words which were added to Webster's Dictionary in 2023. Transcript: 00:00:01 Jack Welcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host social. And today we are stepping into the vocabulary spotlight and social. I have a list here of 24 new words that were recently added to Webster's Dictionary in 2023. 00:00:23 Jack And I thought it would be kind of a fun be fun to kind of go through this list over the next several months and so maybe we'll do like 3 words per episode. 00:00:36 Jack Word and the first word. I'm just gonna kind of test you and see if you know what the the meaning is beast mode. 00:00:46 Xochitl Ohh yeah, Beast mode is like. 00:00:49 Xochitl Ohh, I went beast mode on it. Like hulking out or like also doing like top of your game at something. 00:00:59 Jack Yeah. I I I see it a lot on like uh, because I. 00:01:04 Xochitl Game forums. 00:01:06 Jack Yeah. Game forums. Yeah, in gaming and also in like fitness. 00:01:11 Xochitl Oh yeah, definitely. 00:01:13 Jack Yeah, like like someone would say like. 00:01:16 Jack Did you have? 00:01:16 Jack A good workout today. And you're like, yeah, I. 00:01:18 Jack Went beast mode. 00:01:21 Jack And it means they did like a very intense workout. Or I watch basketball highlights. I I love to watch, like NBA highlights and stuff like that. And sometimes the announcer will go whoa. LeBron James went beast mode on the other team or whatever. 00:01:41 Jack And so it's kind of like. 00:01:41 Xochitl Mm-hmm. 00:01:44 Jack Going above and beyond the normal expectation to like a very intense and focused mode of being, I guess what about in gaming? What what it, what does, what does it mean in that respect? 00:02:02 Xochitl UM beast mode? Yeah, I think it's just like it's the same as, like with athletics, I honestly think. 00:02:08 Xochitl That my generation sometimes sees like gaming as an extreme sport. Basically. Yeah, it is. And so it's like you have competitions and all this stuff. And and I think that it's basically it has the same exact meaning, but just applying it to gaming. 00:02:13 Jack Yeah, it is now. 00:02:24 Jack You're just killing. 00:02:24 Jack A lot of people, and you're doing really, really well in the game and you, you're basically you're going to beat mode, yeah. 00:02:29 Xochitl Killing it. 00:02:30 Xochitl Yeah, going beast mode. 00:02:32 Jack Yeah. OK. So there you go listeners, you can use Beast mode when you study English. Study real hard and go beast mode. 00:02:43 Jack #2 this one I have never heard before, but I'm curious if you have bracketology. 00:02:53 Xochitl Acology. 00:02:54 Jack Bracketology yeah. 00:02:57 Xochitl Rocketown energy. I don't think I've ever. I haven't heard of it. I haven't heard of it. 00:03:02 Jack Yeah, this is for this. 00:03:04 Jack Is for people who are like. 00:03:04 Xochitl Ohh I know what bracketology is. Ohh I do I do I just it just hit me. I remember all those YouTube videos that were trending in 2022 and 2023 where it would like put things into. 00:03:16 Xochitl To brackets, so do like a BCS level or whatever. Brackets yours kind of. Is that what we're talking about? 00:03:25 Jack Exactly. And it's. 00:03:26 Jack It's mostly comes from, like online gambling on sports or just people who love sports. So, you know, for example, there's a the college basketball NCAA Tournament, which is happens in March. They call it March Madness. 00:03:45 Jack And people love to try to predict the outcomes of the of the games. And so bracketology is the practice or study of predicting outcomes of elimination in tournaments or competitions. So. 00:04:04 Jack Technology is the practice of that. 00:04:07 Jack So they, you know, I mean it, it didn't really need a name, you know, like filling out a bracket for trying to predict, which, you know, people will do it for the World Cup, for soccer and stuff like that too. But now it has a name. An