韦氏词典公布2023年度词汇：Authentic

去年，韦氏词典（Merriam-Webster）2022年度词汇为：Gaslighting（煤气灯）。

今天，韦氏词典公布了2023年度词汇：Authentic（真实的；真正的）。

🤔️小作业：

1. According to Peter Sokolowski, what is the underlying societal implication of the word "authentic" being prominent in 2023?

A) A crisis and increased value of authenticity.

B) A general appreciation for traditional values.

C) A shift towards more transparent communication.

D) A trend towards simplicity and minimalism.

A) Elon Musk's advice to leaders about social media.

B) The rise of artificial intelligence.

C) The popularity of virtual reality technology.

D) OpenAI's leadership crisis.

无注释原文：

What's Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2023? Hint: Be true to yourself

From: AP NEWS

In an age of deepfakes and post-truth, as artificial intelligence rose and Elon Musk turned Twitter into X, the Merriam-Webster word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.”

Authentic cuisine. Authentic voice. Authentic self. Authenticity as artifice. Lookups for the word are routinely heavy on the dictionary company's site but were boosted to new heights throughout the year, editor at large Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

“We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,” he said ahead of Monday's announcement of this year's word. “What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”

Sokolowski and his team don't delve into the reasons people head for dictionaries and websites in search of specific words. Rather, they chase the data on lookup spikes and world events that correlate. This time around, there was no particularly huge boost at any given time but a constancy to the increased interest in “authentic.”

This was the year of artificial intelligence, for sure, but also a moment when ChatGPT-maker OpenAI suffered a leadership crisis. Taylor Swift and Prince Harry chased after authenticity in their words and deeds. Musk himself, at February's World Government Summit in Dubai, urged the heads of companies, politicians, ministers and other leaders to “speak authentically” on social media by running their own accounts.

“Can we trust whether a student wrote this paper? Can we trust whether a politician made this statement? We don't always trust what we see anymore,” Sokolowski said. “We sometimes don't believe our own eyes or our own ears. We are now recognizing that authenticity is a performance itself.”

Merriam-Webster's entry for “authentic” is busy with meaning.

There is “not false or imitation: real, actual,” as in an authentic cockney accent. There's “true to one's own personality, spirit or character.” There's “worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact.” There is “made or done the same way as an original.” And, perhaps the most telling, there's “conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.”

“Authentic” follows 2022's choice of “gaslighting.” And 2023 marks Merriam-Webster's 20th anniversary choosing a top word.

The company's data crunchers filter out evergreen words like “love” and “affect” vs. “effect” that are always high in lookups among the 500,000 words it defines online. This year, the wordsmiths also filtered out numerous five-letter words because Wordle and Quordle players clearly use the company's site in search of them as they play the daily games, Sokolowski said.

Sokolowski, a lexicologist, and his colleagues have a bevy of runners-up for word of the year that also attracted unusual traffic. They include “X” (lookups spiked in July after Musk's rebranding of Twitter), “EGOT” (there was a boost in February when Viola Davis achieved that rare quadruple-award status with a Grammy) and “Elemental,” the title of a new Pixar film that had lookups jumping in June.

- ◆ -

注：完整题目见本文开头；中文文本为机器翻译并非一一对应，仅供参考

含注释全文：

What's Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2023? Hint: Be true to yourself

From: AP NEWS

In an age of deepfakes and post-truth, as artificial intelligence rose and Elon Musk turned Twitter into X, the Merriam-Webster word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.”

在深度伪造（deepfakes）和后真相（post-truth）时代，随着人工智能的崛起以及埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）将推特（Twitter）改为X的背景下，《韦氏词典》（Merriam-Webster）将2023年的年度词汇选为“authentic”（真实的，真正的）。

📍authentic /ɔːˈθen.tɪk/ 形容词，表示“真的；真正的；可靠的；可信的”，英文解释为“If something is authentic, it is real, true, or what people say it is.”如：authentic Italian food 正宗意大利食品。

📍authenticity /ˌɔː.θenˈtɪs.ə.ti/ 名词，表示“确实性；真实性；可靠性”，英文解释为“the quality of being genuine or true.”举个🌰：The authenticity of her story is beyond doubt. 她讲述的事情的真实性不容置疑。

Authentic cuisine. Authentic voice. Authentic self. Authenticity as artifice. Lookups for the word are routinely heavy on the dictionary company's site but were boosted to new heights throughout the year, editor at large Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

正宗美食、真实声音、本真自我、以及刻意营造的真实性。特约编辑彼得·索科洛夫斯基（Peter Sokolowski）在接受美联社独家采访时说，这个词在《韦氏词典》网站的搜索量通常很高，但在今年达到了新的高度。

cuisine /kwɪˈziːn/ 表示“烹调风格；饭菜，菜肴”，英文解释为“The cuisine of a country or district is the style of cooking that is characteristic of that place.”

artifice /ˈɑː.tɪ.fɪs/ 表示“诡计；奸计；欺骗”，英文解释为“(the use of) a clever trick or something intended to deceive”举个🌰：Amazingly for Hollywood, she seems almost entirely without artifice. 尽管身处好莱坞，可她好像从不耍什么阴谋诡计，真是让人惊诧。

📍“Authenticity as artifice”表达了一种看似矛盾的观念，即在某些情境下，所谓的“真实性”实际上可能是刻意制造或精心设计的假象。这里，“artifice” 意味着巧妙的手段或诡计，暗示了“真实性”有时候可能只是一种表面的、刻意营造的、人为构造的状态。

可以作名词也可以作动词，表示“改善；提高；增强；推动”，英文解释为“to improve or increase something”举个🌰：The theatre managed to boost its audiences by cutting ticket prices. 剧院设法通过降低票价来增加观众数量。

📍“佩洛西有病还是先治病吧”文中提到be boosted，get boosted用来指打了加强针（疫苗），也有说booster shot/booster dose.

表示“特约编辑，自由编辑（可自由选择主题为杂志、报纸或网站撰写文章或提出建议的编辑）”

📍“Editor at large”是一个特定的媒体和出版行业术语，指的是一位拥有广泛职责和自主性的编辑，通常负责特定的报道领域或专题，而不是固定在某个具体的编辑部门。这样的编辑可能负责撰写、采访、报告或编辑各种主题和故事，经常涉及不同的地点和内容。

exclusive /ɪkˈskluː.sɪv/ 1）表示“专用的，专有的；独有的，独占的”，英文解释为“limited to only one person or group of people”如：an exclusive interview 独家采访，举个🌰：This room is for the exclusive use of guests. 这个房间是专供客人使用的。

2）表示“昂贵的；高档的；豪华的”，英文解释为“expensive and only for people who are rich or of a high social class”如：an exclusive private club 豪华私人俱乐部。

“We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,” he said ahead of Monday's announcement of this year's word. “What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”

他在周一宣布今年年度词汇前表示：“我们在2023年看到了一种真实性危机。我们意识到，当我们质疑真实性时，我们会更加珍视它。”

Sokolowski and his team don't delve into the reasons people head for dictionaries and websites in search of specific words. Rather, they chase the data on lookup spikes and world events that correlate. This time around, there was no particularly huge boost at any given time but a constancy to the increased interest in “authentic.”

索科洛夫斯基和他的团队并没有深入研究人们在字典和网站上搜索特定词汇的原因，而是追踪与全球事件相关的搜索峰值数据。这一次，人们对“authentic”一词的搜索量并没有在任何特定时间出现显著增长，而是持续不断增加。

delve /delv/ into sth表示“深入探索；探究”，英文解释为“to examine something carefully in order to discover more information about someone or something”举个🌰：It's not always a good idea to delve too deeply into someone's past. 过分探究某人的过去并不见得总是一件好事。

在剑桥词典公布2020年度词汇：Quarantine中出现了这个词，1）作名词，可以理解为“峰值”或者“激增；猛增；急升”，英文解释为“a sharp increase in the magnitude or concentration of something”，如：a spike in oil prices 油价的急剧上涨。

2）也可以作动词，同样表示“激增”，英文解释为“if the number or rate of something spikes, it increases quickly and by a large amount ”举个🌰：New orders have spiked in the last two years. 新订单在过去两年里激增。

3）作名词，表示“尖头，尖刺；（尤指金属的）尖状物”，英文解释为“a narrow, thin shape with a sharp point at one end, or something, especially a piece of metal, with this shape”

4）spikes表示“（某些运动鞋上的）防滑鞋钉；钉鞋”，英文解释为“a set of short, pointed pieces of metal or plastic, attached to the bottom of shoes worn for particular sports, that stop the person wearing the shoes from sliding on the ground, or shoes with these pointed pieces”

correlate /ˈkɒr.ə.leɪt/ 表示“相互关系；联系；相关”，英文解释为“If two or more facts, numbers, etc. correlate or are correlated, there is a relationship between them.”举个🌰：Stress levels and heart disease are strongly correlated (= connected). 压力程度和心脏病密切相关。

constancy /ˈkɒn.stən.si/ 1）表示“恒久不变；稳定”，英文解释为“the quality of staying the same, not getting less or more”

2）表示“忠诚；坚贞”，相当于“loyalty”举个🌰：Never doubt the constancy of my love for you. 永远不必怀疑，我对你的爱忠贞不渝。

This was the year of artificial intelligence, for sure, but also a moment when ChatGPT-maker OpenAI suffered a leadership crisis. Taylor Swift and Prince Harry chased after authenticity in their words and deeds. Musk himself, at February's World Government Summit in Dubai, urged the heads of companies, politicians, ministers and other leaders to “speak authentically” on social media by running their own accounts.

今年无疑是人工智能之年，但也是ChatGPT开发商OpenAI遭遇领导层危机的时刻。泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）和哈里王子（Prince Harry）都在努力在言行中体现真诚。马斯克本人在2月迪拜世界政府峰会上敦促公司负责人、政治家、部长和其他领导者通过经营自己的账号在社交媒体上“真诚地发言”。

“Can we trust whether a student wrote this paper? Can we trust whether a politician made this statement? We don't always trust what we see anymore,” Sokolowski said. “We sometimes don't believe our own eyes or our own ears. We are now recognizing that authenticity is a performance itself.”

索科洛夫斯基说：“我们能否相信学生写了这篇论文？我们能否相信政治家发表了这个声明？我们不再总是相信我们所看到的。有时我们不相信自己的眼睛或耳朵。我们现在认识到，真实性本身就是一场表演。”

Merriam-Webster's entry for “authentic” is busy with meaning.

《韦氏词典》对“authentic”一词的定义非常丰富。

1）表示“项目；条目；（一则）记录”，英文解释为“a separate piece of information that is recorded in a book, computer, etc.”举个🌰：They've updated a lot of the entries in the most recent edition of the encyclopedia. 在最新版百科全书中他们更新了很多条目。

2）表示“参赛作品；参赛答卷”，英文解释为“An entry for a competition is a piece of work, a story or drawing, or the answers to a set of questions, which you complete in order to take part in the competition.”

There is “not false or imitation: real, actual,” as in an authentic cockney accent. There's “true to one's own personality, spirit or character.” There's “worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact.” There is “made or done the same way as an original.” And, perhaps the most telling, there's “conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.”

有“不是虚假或模仿的：真实的，实际的”，例如地道的伦敦腔。还有“忠于某人的个性、精神或性格”，以及“符合事实或基于事实，值得接受或相信”。还有“以与原作相同的方式制作或完成”。也许最能说明问题的是，“符合原作，以重现基本特征”。

imitation /ˌɪm.ɪˈteɪ.ʃən/ 形容词，表示“仿造的”，英文解释为“made to look like something else”如：an imitation leather jacket 仿皮上衣；作名词，表示“模仿，仿效”，英文解释为“an occasion when someone or something imitates another person or thing”

cockney /ˈkɒk.ni/ 1）表示“伦敦东区（尤指较贫穷区域的）土话；伦敦土话”，英文解释为“the type of speech used by people from the East End of London”举个🌰：You won't hear much real cockney spoken unless you go to the East End. 除非你去伦敦东区，否则你不会听到多少真正的伦敦土话。

2）表示“伦敦东区人；伦敦佬”，英文解释为“a person from the East End of London, who speaks cockney”

accent /ˈæk.sənt/ 表示“口音，腔调；土音”，英文解释为“the way in which people in a particular area, country, or social group pronounce words”举个🌰：He's got a strong southern/Boston accent. 他说话带有很重的南方/波士顿口音。

conform to/with 表示“遵守，遵照；符合，达到；依照”，英文解释为“to obey a rule or reach the necessary stated standard, or to do things in a traditional way”举个🌰：Before buying the baby's car seat , make sure that it conforms to the official safety standards. 购买婴儿车之前，要确保它符合官方的安全标准。

“Authentic” follows 2022's choice of “gaslighting.” And 2023 marks Merriam-Webster's 20th anniversary choosing a top word.

《韦氏词典》2022年年度词汇为“gaslighting”。2023年是《韦氏词典》评选年度词汇的第20个年头。

gaslighting /ˈɡæs.laɪ.tɪŋ/ 表示“情感操纵，煤气灯效应”，英文解释为“the action of tricking or controlling someone by making them believe things that are not true, especially by suggesting that they may be mentally ill”举个🌰：Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse. 情感操纵是一种心理虐待。

The company's data crunchers filter out evergreen words like “love” and “affect” vs. “effect” that are always high in lookups among the 500,000 words it defines online. This year, the wordsmiths also filtered out numerous five-letter words because Wordle and Quordle players clearly use the company's site in search of them as they play the daily games, Sokolowski said.

该公司的数据分析人员过滤掉了像“love”（爱）、“affect”（影响）和“effect”（效果）这样的常用词，这些词汇的线上搜索量在其50万个词汇中始终居高不下。索科洛夫斯基说，今年工作人员还过滤掉了许多五个字母的单词，因为Wordle和Quordle玩家每天在玩游戏时，显然会使用词典网站搜索这些词汇。

crunch /krʌntʃ/ 作动词，表示“嘎吱地咬嚼；嘎吱作响”，英文解释为“to crush hard food loudly between the teeth, or to make a sound as if something is being crushed or broken”举个🌰：She was crunching noisily on an apple. 她嘎吱嘎吱地嚼着苹果。

📍在这个上下文中，“crunchers”是指那些处理和分析数据的人或系统。这个词通常用于描述在各种行业中处理大量数据的人员或计算机程序，特别是在涉及到复杂计算和数据分析的情境中。

📍本文中“data crunchers”指的是负责分析词典网站搜索数据的人员或系统，以确定哪些词汇是当年的热门搜索词。因此，“crunchers”可以翻译为“数据分析者”或“数据处理者”，强调他们在处理和分析大量数据方面的作用。

补充：

📍number-cruncher /ˈnʌm.bəˌkrʌn.tʃər/ 表示“运算奇才，超级电脑”，英文解释为“a person or computer that performs mathematical work involving large amounts of information or numbers”举个🌰：He gained a reputation as a smart number-cruncher who could turn data into policy. 他获得了运算奇才的美名，可以将数据转化为政策。

📍crunch /krʌntʃ/ 作名词，表示“（突发的）不足，短缺；（尤指）缺钱”，英文解释为“a situation in which there is suddenly not enough of sth, especially money”如：a budget/energy/housing crunch 预算金额/能源/住房短缺。

📍the crunch 表示“严峻的形势；紧要关头；需要作出艰难抉择的时刻”，英文解释为“a difficult situation that forces you to make a decision or do something”举个🌰：The crunch came when I was forced to choose between my marriage and my career. 关键时刻到了，我不得不在婚姻和事业之间作出选择。

作动词，表示“过滤”，英文解释为“to remove solids from liquids or gases, or to remove particular types of light, using special equipment”举个🌰：The water is filtered to remove any impurities. 这种水经过滤以去除杂质。

作名词：

1）表示“筛选（过滤）程序”，英文解释为“a program that stops certain types of electronic information, email, etc. being sent to a computer.”

2）表示“滤器；过滤器”，英文解释为“a device containing paper, sand, chemicals, etc. that a liquid or gas is passed through in order to remove any materials that are not wanted”

3）此前在尴尬！视频会议忘关摄像头......文中介绍有公司主管在线会议时，误开滤镜特效，会议全程整个人变成土豆头🥔，就提到：she could not figure out how to remove the filter. 主管一直搞不清要怎么关掉滤镜。filter指的就是滤镜。

evergreen /ˈev.ə.ɡriːn/ 表示“永葆青春的；不衰的；持久的”，英文解释为“always seeming fresh or remaining popular”如：that evergreen TV series "Friends" 那部经久不衰的电视连续剧《老友记》。

wordsmith /ˈwɜːd.smɪθ/ 表示“（尤指在写作中擅于运用文字的）语言大师，语言艺术家”，英文解释为“a person who has skill with using words, especially in writing”

Sokolowski, a lexicologist, and his colleagues have a bevy of runners-up for word of the year that also attracted unusual traffic. They include “X” (lookups spiked in July after Musk's rebranding of Twitter), “EGOT” (there was a boost in February when Viola Davis achieved that rare quadruple-award status with a Grammy) and “Elemental,” the title of a new Pixar film that had lookups jumping in June.

作为词汇学专家，索科洛夫斯基及其同事们还挑选出了多个年度词汇候补词，这些词汇也同样引起了大量搜索。其中包括“X”（7月份，马斯克将推特改名后搜索量激增）、“EGOT”（2月份，维奥拉·戴维斯（Viola Davis）获得格莱美奖后，实现难得的美国演艺四大奖全满贯后搜索量激增）和“Elemental”（6月份，皮克斯新作标题致搜索量激增）。

“Lexicologist”是指从事词典学的专家或学者。词典学（lexicology）是语言学的一个分支，专注于研究和分析词汇，包括词汇的结构、发展、变化、意义以及它们在语言中的使用。词典学家通常会研究单词的起源、发音、定义、用法等方面，他们的工作常常与编纂词典或进行语言研究相关。

bevy /ˈbev.i/ 表示“ （同类人或东西的）一群，一批，一堆”，英文解释为“a large group of people or things of the same kind”如：a bevy of beauties (= beautiful young women) 一群美丽的姑娘。

📍run-up表示“（重要事件的）前夕，前奏，前期，准备阶段”，英文解释为“the run-up to sth the period of time just before an important event”，如：in the run-up to Christmas 圣诞节前夕；

📍run-up也可以指“（踢球、跳高等之前的）助跑，助跑距离”，英文解释：the act of running, or the distance that you run, before you kick a ball, jump over a pole etc.

📍 runner-up 表示“亚军，第二名”，英文解释为“A runner-up is someone who has finished in second place in a race or competition.”注意，复数形式为runners-up，举个🌰：The ten runners-up will receive a case of wine. 那10名亚军将得到一箱葡萄酒。

熟词僻义，traffic一词除了熟知的“交通”的意思，还有“流量”的含义，英文解释：the movement of messages and signals through an electronic communication system，如“数据流量”：data traffic。

此外，作为动词，还有“贩卖（人口）”的意思，to illegally buy or sell people, or make money from work they are forced to do, such as sex work. 如：人口贩卖 human trafficking.

📍注：traffic (v.) 过去式 trafficked 过去分词：trafficked 现在分词：trafficking.

📍people trafficking/human trafficking表示“贩卖人口”，英文解释为“the crime of buying and selling people, or making money from work they are forced to do, such as sex work”

EGOT一般指美国演艺四大奖。美国艺术四大奖项（EGOT），即是Emmy（艾美奖），Grammy（格莱美奖） ，Oscar（奥斯卡奖），Tony（托尼奖）的合称，指获得这四大奖项的人。

quadruple /ˈkwɒdrʊpəl, -ˈdruːpəl/ 1）作动词，表示“（使）变为四倍”，英文解释为“to become four times bigger; to make sth four times bigger”举个🌰：Sales have quadrupled in the last five years. 过去五年中，销售额已增长至以前的四倍。

2）表示“大（或多）四倍”，英文解释为“four times as big”如：a quadruple measure 四倍大小；

3）表示“包括四部分（或四个人、四个地方等）的”，英文解释为“involving four parts, people, places, etc.”如：a quadruple fracture of his thumb 他的拇指四处骨折。

elemental /ˌel.ɪˈmen.təl/ 1）表示“自然力的”，英文解释为“showing the strong power of nature”如：elemental force/fury 大自然的威力/狂暴。

2）表示“初级的，基础的；主要的，重要的”，英文解释为“basic or most simple, but strong”如：elemental needs/desires/feelings 基本需要/欲望/情感。

📍《疯狂元素城》（Elemental）是皮克斯制作、彼得·孙执导的动画电影，于2023年6月16日在美国、中国上映。

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