Pragmatic? Word!

Happy New Year! It’s astonishing to realize we’re already over a week into that new year…and the year is 2024! Doesn’t it seem like it wasn’t long ago we were all worried about it being 1984 and all the literary implications one could read into it?

Thus far, ’24 doesn’t seem all that different than ’23, which hardly comes as a suprise. Changing a calendar rarely makes for automatic changes in lives, let alone the world at large. But I remain optimistic that just maybe it will before we ring in the next “Auld Lang Syne.”

If people seemed more divided and polarized than ever last year, it even seemed to reflect itself in the “words of the year.” For those unfamiliar with the concept, several organizations pick a word (occasionally a phrase rather than just one word) that best signifies the year behind us; sometimes it’s a brand new word, other times its just one that suddenly jumped to prominence. The two primary purveyors of the “honors” are Oxford University and Merriam-Webster, the dictionary people. In some recent years, Oxford chose words like “selfie” (2013) and “GIF” (2012) while MW have used ones like “pandemic” (2020) and “feminism” (2017). But last year, Oxford chose “rizz” while MW went for “authentic.” Which in some ways are approximately opposites of each other. Even the English masters are divided!

“Rizz” came as a surprise to me, as I’d never heard the term. They tell us it basically means charisma, from where it’s derived, much like “flu” comes from “in-flu-enza”. They say it means ”pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm and attractiveness.” I don’t have a lot of “rizz”. But I can take consolation in knowing that I’m not alone – the word jumped in popular usage and many more people’s lexicons in summer after actor Tom Holland said in an interview “I have no rizz whatsoever.”

Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster went for “authentic.” They noted that words like “rizz” and “deep fake” were also popular but “we’re thinking about, aspiring to and judging more than ever” things which aren’t authentic, be it AI or celebrity culture. People who have a lot of rizz at times may not be rich in authenticity, it would seem. So people are longing for things that are authentic, from celebrities to ethnic foods to things as simple as photos we see in publications.

So do we want “rizz” or want “authentic”? Seems to me the answer might be a little of each. My hope is that the word of the year for 2024 will turn out to be “pragmatic.” I love the word. It seems like that is what we all need more of around us these days. As the Rolling Stones once said, “you can’t always get what you want, but if try sometimes, you get what you need.” We need pragmaticism.

MW define “pragmatic” as “practical as opposed to idealistic” adding “a person who is pragmatic is concerned more with matters of fact than with what could be or should be.” I call it “maturity”. Realizing that compromise is often necessary, that not everyone is going to have the same opinions or desires as us, and that getting part of what you’re hoping for sure beats getting nothing. A message politicians could take to heart more than ever. No matter which side of the great divide you may be politically (or if you’re one of the silent majority still somewhere near the middle) you have to agree that both sides are getting more extreme in their demands, more dug in in their positions… and getting less and less done in the process. Cooler heads and compromises are what we need to get things progressing, no matter what the topic, from taxation to immigration to the justice system, Globally, wouldn’t we all be better off if the Israelis and their Arab neighbors simply pragmatically agreed that the other was there to stay so it would be best to look for a way of getting along peacefully?

Pragmatic. If we all embrace it as this year’s word and perhaps the word of 2025 might be “excellent.”