Linguistics Have Officially Dubbed ‘-Ussy’ as Word of the Year

The evolution of language on the Internet is really an interesting one, and future linguists might be shaking their head on the American Dialect Society’s selection for 2022 phrase of the 12 months: “-ussy.”

The “-ussy” suffix is a callback to the phrase “pussy” and has exploded on the Internet in recent times. “-ussy” was a finalist for the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year title alongside “quiet quitting,” “rizz,” and “Slava Ukraine” which interprets to “Glory to Ukraine.” The suffix is usually mixed with a phrase to kind a portmanteua with a brand new that means. One frequent utility is combing “-ussy” with “boy” to create “bussy,” which may now refer to a person’s anus.

“The selection of the suffix ‘-ussy’ highlights how creativity in new word formation has been embraced online in venues like TikTok,” mentioned Ben Zimmer in a press release. Zimmer is a linguist, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and chair of the American Dialect Society’s New Words Committee. “The playful suffix builds off the word ‘pussy’ to generate new slang terms. The process has been so productive lately on social media sites and elsewhere that it has been dubbed ‘-ussification.’”

One of the earliest functions of the ‘-ussy’ suffix was in a meme involving Mr. Krabs from the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants set to a tune from the now defunct text-to-singing app Ditty.it. In the video, a female voice sings “Mr. Krabs is one thicc bih. Let me see that krussy,” combining Krabs and ‘-ussy’ to confer with the character’s giant derriere. The meme format spawned a wave of similar videos within the early 2010s utilizing totally different characters and folks for the punchline.

The American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year provides to the rising record of Internet-related phrases that went viral in 2022. Oxford topped the meme phrase “goblin mode” as Word of the Year, whereas Merriam-Webster named “gaslight”—a psychological well being time period that noticed traction on social media this 12 months—as its phrase of the 12 months.