IT’S that time of the year when “of the year” lists start rolling in. The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is due to be announced on Tuesday, with Olympian middle-distance runner Keely Hodgkinson hot favourite to win. I’m not remotely sporty and have had to Google her; I’m exhausted just reading about her achievements.

The word of the year is much more my style. I’m always curious to hear what it is, and whether I agree with it.

For 2024, Oxford University Press has chosen “brain rot”, which is what happens when you consume excessive amounts of low-quality content online by, say, scrolling on social media. Adopted by Generations Z and Alpha, the usage saw an increase in frequency of 230 per cent from 2023 to 2024.

However, the first recorded use dates back long before the creation of the internet to 1854, when it was coined by American author Henry David Thoreau. It goes to show everything is cyclical – not an argument the Other Half is convinced by when Daughter has been sapping his smartphone data with her TikTok usage.

In a similar vein is “slop”, also known as substandard AI-generated art, writing or other content that has been distributed indiscriminately online. If you’re reading this column via the Voice website, rest assured it has been generated by my brilliant brain, and delivered to you via the quickfire medium of my own digits (five per hand, unlike AI).

Other phrases or words on the dictionary publisher's shortlist include “romantasy” (Daughter’s favourite book genre, which has a predilection for Greek myth and seems to have taken over several shelves at Waterstones), and “dynamic pricing”.

I was rather taken with the latter – the words rather than the concept – as they perfectly encapsulate the 21st-century trend of shamelessly inflating ticket prices for popular music gigs to capitalise upon demand, not even within season but minute by minute.

Collins English Dictionary declared its word of the year as “brat”. The title of singer Charli XCX's album, it has been transformed from annoying child to someone with a "confident, independent and hedonistic attitude" - and a cultural movement to aspire to.

Dictionary.com, meanwhile, chose “demure” as its word of the year. Hats off to TikTok content creator Jools Lebron, who went viral after posting about her “demure” work outfit and “mindful” make-up.

I didn’t see her post, but I did spot countless mickey-takes by local establishments claiming to be "very demure, very mindful" (I’d especially like to compliment Camborne and Redruth libraries, who have their fingers on the pulse of social media trends).

My own make-up, for what it’s worth, is “invisible”, my work outfit “whatever I could grab from the growing pile on the bedroom floor that looked clean and didn’t smell funny”. Somehow, I don’t see that catching on with a hashtag.

Equally interesting is the list of 2024’s hardest English words to spell. Delightful diarrhoea tops the list, with 4,816 average monthly searches for its spelling (source: SEO platform Ahrefs).

The double R, silent H, and O before E can all be tricky to remember, and are attributed to the word’s Greek roots. Regardless, one has to feel sorry for those who need to know for, well, obvious reasons. (Note: squits is much easier to spell).

Beautiful, colour and gorgeous all make the top 10 but there’s no sign of definitely, which is the word I see misspelled most frequently (“definately” and even “defiantly” being regular culprits), and to/too, which are all too often confused.

Meanwhile, in the world of baby names, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that Olivia has hung onto the top spot for girls for the eighth year in a row, while Muhammad has set the cat among the pigeons by toppling last year’s boy favourite Noah.

It’s been in the top 10 since 2016, and has finally become the UK’s most popular moniker for baby boys for the first time – and that’s without taking alternative spellings like Mohammed into account.

This has catalysed the usual debate in the darker recesses of social media, despite the fact it simply reflects a tradition among Muslim parents that never quite took off in Western religion. We don’t call first-born sons Jesus, at least not in the UK (an increasingly secular country in any case); if we did, it would probably give Muhammad a run for his money.

Predictions for 2025 include Charli and Sabrina after pop stars and Penelope from Bridgerton for girls; Jude after Bellingham and a very Biblical Adam after swimmer Peaty for boys.

While I feel sorry for primary schoolteachers having to differentiate between a sea of Olivias, having seen Nevaeh make its debut in in the top 100 – not an exotic loanword, but “heaven” spelled backwards – I think I’ll stick with the tried and tested.

It’s easier to spell, for starters.