JEFF CAPLAN'S MY MINUTE OF NEWS
Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: Word of the Year 2024
Nov 27, 2024, 5:04 PM | Updated: 6:52 pm

FILE - A Merriam-Webster dictionary sits atop their citation files at the dictionary publisher's offices on Dec. 9, 2014, in Springfield, Mass. A California man who admitted to making violent anti-LGBTQ threats against dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster Inc. over its updated gender definitions was sentenced in a federal courtroom in Massachusetts on Thursday, April 13, 2023, to a year in prison. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)
Editor’s note: This is an editorial piece. An editorial, like a news article, is based on fact but also shares opinions. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and are not associated with our newsroom.
SALT LAKE CITY — It’s a tough thing, when you’re job is literally to say words — and I don’t think I understand them anymore.
Dictionary.com has just announced its word of the year. Maybe you ran across this viral clip on TikTok using the word demure.
This is Jools LeBron.
@joolieannie #fyp #demure ♬ original sound – Jools Lebron
“You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure,” She said. “See how I look very presentable? The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job.”
Good advice… she’s demure. And suddenly, so was everybody else was on TikTok.
The other term I don’t understand comes from this weird interview with the stars of Wicked. The interviewer here is Terry Gilchrist.
“People are taking the lyrics of defining gravity and really holding space with that,” She said. “And feeling power in that.”
Huh?
What is “holding space?” The two Wicked Stars have this over-the-top reaction as they discover people are “holding space.”
The two lovingly touch fingers, neither of them knows what in heck holding space means, but oh they’re so taken by this! It’s so over the top.
The interviewer said afterward it means taking time to contemplate something.
Look, growing up, y’know what we called the rainforest? The jungle. So I want to make fun of holding space. But I won’t. I am too demure.
Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X.