《韦氏词典》公布2023年度词汇

2023年11月27日，韦氏词典（Merriam-Webster）公布了其2023年度词汇——Authentic（真实的；真正的）。

（图源：视觉中国）

以下英文原文是韦氏官网对 authentic 所做的阐释： 

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023 is authentic—the term for something we’re thinking about, writing about, aspiring to, and judging more than ever.

韦氏词典评选出的2023年年度词汇是 authentic（真实的）——这个词所指的是我们比以往想得更多、写得更多、渴望更多和评判更多的问题。

A high-volume lookup most years, authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023, driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.

该词大多数年份的访问量都很高，在有关人工智能、名人文化、身份认同和社交媒体的故事和对话的推动下，2023年更是出现了大幅增长。

Authentic has a number of meanings including “not false or imitation,” a synonym of real and actual; and also “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate—two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary.

该词有很多含义，包括“不是假的或模仿的”（real 和 actual 的同义词）、“忠于自己个性、精神或性格的”。这显然是一种令人向往的品质，但 authentic 难以定义，也容易引起争议——这是很多人去查词典的两个原因。

Authentic is often connected to identity, whether national or personal: words frequently modified by authentic include cuisine and dish, but also self and voice. Celebrities like singers Lainey Wilson, Sam Smith, and especially Taylor Swift all made headlines in 2023 with statements about seeking their “authentic voice” and “authentic self.” Headlines like Three Ways To Tap Into Taylor Swift’s Authenticity And Build An Eras-Like Workplace associate this quality with pop-culture superpower.

该词常常与身份认同有关，无论是民族认同还是自我认同。该词所修饰的词语包括 cuisine 和 dish，还有 self 和 voice。歌手莱妮·威尔逊、萨姆·史密斯，特别是泰勒·斯威夫特等名人在2023年都登上了头条，他们都声称要寻找“真实的声音”和“真实的自我”。像“Three Ways To Tap Into Taylor Swift’s Authenticity And Build An Eras-Like Workplace”这样的大标题将这种品质与流行文化的超级力量联系在一起。

And with the rise of artificial intelligence—and its impact on deepfake videos, actors’ contracts, academic honesty, and a vast number of other topics—the line between “real” and “fake” has become increasingly blurred.

随着人工智能的兴起——以及它对深度造假视频、演员合同、学术诚信和大量其他话题的影响——“真”“假”之间的界限已变得愈加模糊。

Authentic is what brands, social media influencers, and celebrities aspire to be. Elon Musk made headlines when he said that people should be more “authentic” on social media. Apps and platforms like BeReal make recording “authentic” experiences their main purpose. No matter how much artifice and calculation goes into the production of these videos, as Rebecca Jennings of Vox puts it, “wherever people are supposedly being ‘authentic’ on the internet, the money will follow.” Ironically, with “authentic content creators” now recognized as the gold standard for building trust, “authenticity” has become a performance.

authentic是品牌、网红和名人希望自己拥有的品质。埃隆·马斯克说，人们在社交媒体上应该更“真实”——他因此上了头条。BeReal这样的应用软件和平台将记录“真实”体验作为主要目的。无论制作这些视频需要多少技巧和计算，就像Vox公司的丽贝卡•詹宁斯所说：“只要人们在网上被认为表现‘真实’，钱就会随之而来。”讽刺的是，随着“真实内容创作者”现在被当作建立信任的最佳标准，“真实性”已变成了一种表演。

除了 authentic，在2023年韦氏词典的数据库中，还有一些词语很突出，它们大多与今年的热点事件相关：