Merriam-Webster's word of the year is 'authentic.' That says a lot about 2023 - NPR - Dictionary

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"Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate," wrote Merriam-Webster about its word of the year. Joanne K. Watson/handout via Getty Images

Joanne K. Watson/handout via Getty Images

If what we search for is any indication of what we value, then things aren't looking great for artificial intelligence.

"Authentic" was selected as the 2023 word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, landing among the most-looked-up words in the dictionary's 500,000 entries, the company said in a press release Monday.

After all, this was the year that Chat GPT disrupted academic integrity and AI drove Hollywood actors and writers to the picket lines.

Celebrities like Prince Harry and Britney Spears sought to tell their own stories. A certain New York congressman got a taste of comeuppance after years of lying. The summer's hottest blockbuster was about a world of pristine plastic colliding with flesh-and-blood reality.

On social media, millions signed up to "BeReal," beauty filters sparked a big backlash and Elon Musk told brands to be more "authentic" on Twitter (now X) before deciding to charge them all $8 a month to prove that they are who they say.

2023 was the year that authenticity morphed into performance, its very meaning made fuzzy amidst the onslaught of algorithms and alternative facts. The more we crave it, the more we question it.

This is where the dictionary definition comes in.

"Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate — two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary," Merriam-Webster said in its release. Look-ups for the word saw a "substantial increase in 2023," it added.

For a word that we might associate with a certain kind of reliability, "authentic" comes with more than one meaning.

It's a synonym for "real," defined as "not false or imitation." But it can also mean "true to one's own personality, spirit, or character" and, sneakily, "conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features."

This may be why we connect it to ethnicity (authentic cuisine or authentic accent) but also identity in the larger sense (authentic voice and authentic self). In this age where artifice seems to advance daily, we're in a collective moment of trying to go back, to connect with some earlier, simpler version of ourselves.

The dictionary said an additional 13 words stood out in 2023's look-up data. Not surprisingly, quite a few of them have a direct tie-in to the year's biggest news stories: coronation, dystopian, EGOT, implode, doppelganger, covenant, kibbutz, elemental, X and indict.

Others on the list feel connotatively connected to "authentic," or at least our perception of identity in a changing age — words like deepfake, deadname and rizz.

This year, the data-crunchers had to filter out countless five-letter words because they appeared on the smash-hit daily word puzzle, Wordle, the dictionary's editor-at-large told the Associated Press.

That people were turning to Merriam-Webster to verify new vocabulary could be read as a sign of progress. After all, 2022's word of the year belied a distrust of authority: gaslighting.

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BBC Updates Palestinian Prisoner Interview After Translation Error Controversy - Mediaite - Translation

BBC quoted Palestinian prisoner Sara Al Suwaisa saying: “Only Hamas cared” amid descriptions of her ordeal in Israeli prison. (Screengrab via BBC News)

The BBC addressed allegations from Respond Crisis Translation Monday, which claimed the broadcaster incorrectly translated an interview with a released Palestinian prisoner, suggesting she praised Hamas.

In the disputed BBC clip, posted during a live blog feed of its coverage of the hostage exchange between Hamas and Israel, a subtitled translation quoted released Palestinian prisoner Sara Al Suwaisa saying: “Only Hamas cared” amid descriptions of her ordeal in Israeli prison.

Respond Crisis Translation took to X with a comprehensive translation of the interview clip, asserting that the original interview did not mention Hamas at all.

A released Palestinian prisoner says in Arabic that Israel held them in the cold w/o electricity, "sprayed us w/ pepper spray" & "left us to die."

She never mentioned Hamas or a word like it. Yet @BBC translated to: "No one helped us. Only Hamas cared…We love them very much." pic.twitter.com/hVPBuI4o1x

— Respond Crisis Translation (@RespondCrisis) November 26, 2023

In the thread the language advocacy group called the BBC’s version a “dangerous” and “egregious mistranslation” and a “racist fabrication that fans the flames of war.”

“Mistranslations such as these – intentional or not – are exacerbating the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” the group said.

Soon after, the BBC removed the clip from the feed “due to an error in the editing process.” Backlash followed, with concerns that the original clip didn’t include any of the quoted references.

Was this video really on the @BBC site? I can’t find it now but I’m also tech challenged – anyone know? This isn’t mistranslation. This would be wholesale lies because the translations are different messages entirely. Not nuanced differences. https://t.co/Mhg4I2bTfX

— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) November 26, 2023

Hamad Bin Khalifa University Associate Professor Marc Owen Jones pointed out in an accompanying thread that in an extended version of Al Suwaisa’s interview footage available on Al Jazeera in full that she did say that she was “proud” of Hamas and “loved them.”

4) However, what makes it weirder. Sara did actually say she was "proud" of Hamas and "loved them" in a video on Al Jazeera. The video is here but the link is here to the Al Jazeera clip. The blurb on the clip even says she "thanks the resistance" https://t.co/oTW5GPaVgP pic.twitter.com/l0RPgjLGzr

— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) November 27, 2023

Jones continued: “the BBC appear to have taken the sentiment and some of the words from the Al Jazeera video and inserted [it] into their video.”

Responding to Respond Crisis Translation’s X thread, the BBC again admitted an editing error led to inaccurate subtitles in the initial clip. A revised version, they assert, includes the woman’s reference to Hamas.

The video posted on Saturday at 14:48 GMT, originally carried inaccurate subtitles due to an error in the editing process. The page has now been updated to a longer version posted here – https://t.co/n9Wec5k1ih – which does include reference to Hamas

— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) November 27, 2023

The new translation includes Al Suwaisa’s description of the harsh conditions: “The Israelis came to us at 10 o’clock and informed us there was a deal for exchange. We were isolated for a month.They fired tear gas at us. We felt we were humiliated. We had to keep head scarves on all day long. None of us could recognise the other. Some [of] us were tortured and weren’t dealt with as POWs and nobody could help anyone else. They locked us in and in dark rooms. We suffered from cold in winter. They sprayed pepper at us and left us suffering in the wards.

Al Suwaisa concluded: “Nobody felt our sufferings. Only Hamas felt our sufferings. We thank them a lot and love each other a lot.”

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BBC responds after language translators accuse broadcaster of 'dangerous' error - The National - Translation

Respond Crisis Translation claimed on Twitter/X that the BBC had made a “dangerous” error in the translation of an interview posted on the broadcaster’s website on Saturday afternoon by suggesting the woman being interviewed had said “only Hamas cared” when she did not appear to mention the organisation at all.

The BBC Arabic translation initially gave her words as: “The Israelis came to us at 10 in the morning and told us there was a deal.

“We were suffering from difficult circumstances and tear gas was fired at us. We were wearing head covers all the time. The situation was humiliating and included psychological torture, in addition to cutting off the electricity for the prisoners.

“We were suffering from the cold without the electricity and no one helped us. Only Hamas cared. Those who felt our suffering, I thank them very much and we love them very much.”

Respond Crisis Translation insisted the woman never mentioned Hamas and accused the BBC of not only an "egregious mistranslation" but a “racist fabrication that fans the flames of war”.

The organisation called on the BBC to immediately correct the mistake which it said exacerbated “the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza”.

READ MORE: Scottish minister writes to DWP over 'concerning' benefits rules change

Respond Crisis Translation said: “Mistranslations such as these – intentional or not – are exacerbating the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”

On Monday morning, the BBC admitted the clip carried inaccurate subtitles due to an error in the editing process and has now posted a longer clip where bosses say the woman does mention Hamas.

The BBC News Press Team account said: “The video posted on Saturday at 14:48 GMT originally carried inaccurate subtitles due to an error in the editing process.

READ MORE: Scottish Tory urged to correct 'inaccurate' claim about First Minister

“The page has now been updated to a longer version posted here [link shared] which does include reference to Hamas.”

The new clip is translated as: “The Israelis came to us at 10 o’clock and informed us there was a deal for exchange. We were isolated for a month.

“They fired tear gas at us. We felt we were humiliated. We had to keep head scarves on all day long. None of us could recognise the other.

“Some [of] us were tortured and weren’t dealt with as POWs and nobody could help anyone else.

“They locked us in and in dark rooms. We suffered from cold in winter.

“They sprayed pepper at us and left us suffering in the wards.

“Nobody felt our sufferings. Only Hamas felt our sufferings. We thank them a lot and love each other a lot.”

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Michael Alexander, poet and broadcaster whose Anglo-Saxon translations were used in Kenneth Clark's Civilisation ... - The Telegraph - Translation

Michael Alexander, who has died aged 82, was a translator, poet, academic and broadcaster whose scholarship was both deep and varied; his interests ranged from Old English poetry to the modernism of Ezra Pound, and he was also the author of an epic history of English literature that ran to more than 400 pages.

While still a student at Oxford University, Alexander started translating Anglo-Saxon poetry into modern English verse, inspired by Ezra Pound’s translation of The Seafarer. In 1966 Penguin published his translations as The Earliest English Poems, and he was subsequently commissioned to translate the 3,182-line Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf into modern verse.

It was first published in 1973 and Alexander went on to produce a glossed text, also for Penguin, in 1995. “Alexander’s translation is marked by a conviction that it is possible to be both ambitious and faithful,” noted the medievalist Tom Shippey. “[He] communicates the poem with a care which goes beyond fidelity-to-meaning and reaches fidelity of implication.”

Several more books followed, including a History of Old English Literature (Macmillan, 1983) and The Canterbury Tales – The First Fragment (Penguin, 1996). Collectively, Alexander’s Old English books for Penguin sold more than a million copies. His translations were singled out by WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Kenneth Clark, who used Alexander’s renderings of Anglo-Saxon poetry in Civilisation.

Academic success led to literary commissions for BBC radio, to which Alexander brought his customary erudition and good humour. For 17 years he represented Scotland on Radio 4’s Round Britain quiz, alongside the Sunday Herald journalist Alan Taylor, who cheerfully referred to the programme as “the mental equivalent of the mediaeval rack”. In later years, Alexander’s documentaries for Radio 4 included Past Perfect, a profile of Penelope Fitzgerald, and Macavity’s Not There, on TS Eliot.

Upon his retirement from the position of Berry Professor at the University of St Andrews in 2003, Professor Robert Crawford, Head of the School of English, paid him a warm tribute. “[Professor Alexander] writes deftly, with a fluency born of industry, yet which seems, for all its freight of learning, stylishly and easily airborne,” he observed. “Poetry seems written in his stars.”

The eldest of three children, Michael Joseph Alexander was born in Wigan on May 21 1941, to Joseph Alexander and his wife Winifred, née Gaul. The family lived in Liverpool but had transferred to Wigan after the city came under heavy bombardment from the Germans and the maternity hospital where Winifred had been due to give birth was hit.

Michael Alexander in Australia, 1977 Credit: Lucy Alexander

When Michael was five the Alexanders moved from Liverpool to rural Worcestershire, where Joseph was the manager of Worcestershire Farmers, an agricultural cooperative that made and sold animal feed to farmers. Michael attended boarding school from the age of eight, at Worth Priory in Sussex and then Downside in Somerset. At Trinity College, Oxford, he read English from 1959-62.

After leaving Oxford, he spent a year learning French at Cahors and Italian at Perugia (where he met Ezra Pound several times), then took a job as a general trainee in publishing at William Collins. He left in 1965 for a PhD at Princeton, which he abandoned after a year, finding it oppressively Presbyterian and stiff after Oxford (it was a “dry” campus).

The publication of The Earliest English Poems in 1966 led to a job as a lecturer in English at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Alexander lived in Montecito and was (for the only time in his life) very well paid, but found UCSB rather “vacant”. He went back to London and worked briefly for the publisher André Deutsch, under Diana Athill, at the same time taking on the commission to translate Beowulf for Penguin. 

The work took him to the University of East Anglia, where he held a temporary teaching post, and then to Stirling in Scotland, where he rented a room in a castle, made lifelong friends and met his first wife, Eileen McCall. In 1985 he was appointed to the Berry Chair of English at St Andrews University, where he helped to revitalise the struggling English department.

Michael Alexander in Ireland, 2012 Credit: Lucy Alexander

Following his retirement from St Andrews he continued to write, publishing Medievalism: the Middle Ages in Modern England (2007), Geoffrey Chaucer (2012) and Reading Shakespeare (2013). A History of English Literature (2000) ran to two further editions in 2007 and 2013. In 2021 Shoestring Press published Alexander’s short book of poems Here at the Door (the title taken from a line by John Donne). It included a three-stanza reduction of Beowulf, which ended:

Much later a Dragon awoke,
Sent Beowulf’s hall up in smoke,
So his fifty not-out
Was all up the spout.
But he killed it, then died. What a bloke!

A gifted raconteur, Michael Alexander was capable of discoursing on an enormous range of subjects, often in places where the listener least expected it: supermarket car parks, say, or the queue for the bathroom. He took his Catholic faith very seriously but wore it lightly, and was never dogmatic.

He enjoyed games but didn’t play to win, preferring to explore the dead-end corridors of the Cluedo mansion rather than enter any rooms. He was physically active well into later life, demonstrating the playground zipwire to his granddaughters and playing real tennis at the Oxford University Tennis Club.

With his first wife Eileen, née McCall, Michael Alexander had a son and two daughters. She died of cancer in 1986 and he married, secondly, Mary Sheahan, who survives him, along with the children.

Michael Alexander, born May 21 1941, died November 5 2023

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Two pro-Palestine protesters arrested in London after police could not verify translation of banner - Arab News - Translation

LONDON: Two women demonstrating at a pro-Palestine protest in London on Saturday were arrested for holding a sign containing Arabic writing that police officers could not immediately translate.

The women were asked to translate their sign, which they did, but the Metropolitan Police arrested them after the organization could not verify the translation without an independent translator at the scene, Sky News reported.

In a video which captured the incident, the police asked one of the women to translate her banner, to which she replied: “Who will roll up their sleeves for heaven?”

As the police could not verify her translation through an independent translator, the women were arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offense and taken to a police station for questioning.

The incident took place at a Hizb ut-Tahrir protest at the Egyptian Embassy on South Street in Mayfair, which was attended by hundreds of people.

Tens of thousands of protesters in London took part in a larger march on Saturday that stretched from Park Lane to Whitehall. They demanded a permanent ceasefire a day after the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for prisoners held in Israel amid a four-day temporary truce.

Police said that while the majority of people protested peacefully across the capital, 18 people were arrested, including at least five who were detained on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.

Officers handed out leaflets during the march that sought to clarify what would be deemed a criminal offense, after the Metropolitan Police faced pressure from senior government officials to be tougher on alleged displays of antisemitism at the protests.

“Anyone who is racist or incites hatred against any group should expect to be arrested, as should anyone who supports Hamas or any other banned organization,” said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan.

“We will not tolerate anyone who celebrates or promotes acts of terrorism — such as the killing or kidnap of innocent people — or who spreads hate speech.”

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How a dictionary came to spark outrage among the web's otaku - The Japan Times - Dictionary

Nagoya –

On Oct. 23, publisher Sanseido did what it would usually do for an upcoming title: It uploaded the basic details of the book, along with sample pages, to its website. It then issued a press release for it, the Otaku Yogo Jiten Daigenkai, or Otaku Dictionary Daigenkai, compiled by students of Nagoya College and headed by Japanese literature researcher Yoshiko Koide.

By that afternoon, netizens were up in arms.

“There is not even a bare-minimum level of correctness that a publicly published book should have,” said one X user in a post that has been viewed 10,000 times. Another posted, “Publishing such subjective, dōjinshi (self-published magazine)-quality work and calling it a ‘dictionary’ is just going to decrease the credibility of Sanseido so they should really stop.”

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Genius English Translations – Kali Uchis & KAROL G - Labios Mordidos (English Translation) - Genius - Translation

[Intro: Kali Uchis]
A tremendous killer with a flow to slay
Everyone's watching, but she couldn't care less
KAROL and Kali Uchis
The perfect combo to forget about that pain

[Chorus: Kali Uchis]
Uh (Oh, oh, oh, oh)
The girl is turned on, sticks to me like a tattoo (Like a tattoo)
I guarantee you that nobody is tougher than you (Nobody like you)
May God bless that ass that rubs, uh-uh
Like a tattoo, uh-uh

[Verse 1: Kali Uchis]
Once I turn it on, I never stop, stop (Never stop)
Be careful, I don't talk, I shoot (I shoot)
If you still don't know, let me make it clear, clear (Clear)
Playing with me always comes at a cost
Soft Reggaetón, bitten lips
Diamonds trailing down my belly button
More than one is already lost
A doll from a Tarantino movie (Give it to me, papi)
Go easy, you've been warned (Oh-oh)
It's very likely you'll get addicted to me (Oh-oh)
And if you want what's forbidden (Oh-oh)
I'll give it to you hard, darling, I'll punish you (Oh-oh)

[Chorus: Kali Uchis]
Uh (Oh, oh, oh, oh)
The girl is turned on, sticks to me like a tattoo (Like a tattoo)
I guarantee you that nobody is tougher than you (Nobody like you)
May God bless that ass that rubs, uh-uh
Like a tattoo, uh-uh

[Verse 2: Kali Uchis]
Look, I'm soft like honey and coconut
Always rich and sweet like corn arepas
And just with my look, she got all wet up
Your girlfriend goes crazy when I arrive (I arrive)
Maria, Jenny, Catalina, and Sonia
I love my Brazilians and my Colombians (Prr)
Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, I love my Mexicans
And tonight, I'm a lesbian, you make me feel like it

[Chorus: KAROL G, Kali Uchis]
Uh (Oh, oh, oh, oh; ay, papi)
The girl is turned on, sticks to me like a tattoo (Like a tattoo)
I guarantee you that nobody is tougher than you (Nobody like you; come get it)
May God bless that ass that rubs, uh-uh
Like a tattoo, uh-uh (Real Hard)

[Verse 3: KAROL G]
The baby is aggressive with that cute face (Hey)
She's well-established in her whole neighborhood
Short skirt and gistro leaning out of the sunroof
Her ass leaves everyone on mute
Strawberry gloss to bring it down (Bring it down)
Quietly so that no one knows (Ah)
Show me what you have there for me to try it
I'm already feeling hot, come and join me
Strawberry gloss to bring it down (Bring it down)
Quietly so that no one knows (Ah)
She undressed, and I couldn't stop looking at her
That tattoo on her back leaves me breathless

[Chorus: Kali Uchis, KAROL G, Kali Uchis & KAROL G]
Uh (Oh, oh, oh, oh)
The girl is turned on, sticks to me like a tattoo (Like a tattoo)
I guarantee you that nobody is cooler than you (Nobody like you)
May God bless that ass that rubs, uh-uh
Like a tattoo, uh-uh

[Outro: KAROL G, Kali Uchis]
Hey, mami, how good does that tattoo look on you
How far does it go? Show me, let me see
Jajaja
Re-Re-Reggaetón

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