The year language stopped speaking: What ‘6-7’ reveals about a generation shrugging at meaning
Once upon a time, the very word “dictionary” flooded us with the thrill of a sesquipedalian pursuit. A flashback to our childhood evokes memories of proudly flaunting our expanding vocabularies, spelling, and integrating those heavy, tongue-twisting words as badges of honour. Yet here we are in 2025, where the current generation is rerouting the linguistic map of the world. The slang and sobriquets of Gen Z have long dominated headlines, but now they have reached unprecedented heights.Dictionary.com has crowned “6-7” as this year’s so-called Word of the Year, a term with no definition, no syntax, and no discernible roots before losing itself in the labyrinth of the internet. And here it stands, enshrined in digital history beside words that once bore the weight of our times: Change, privacy, identity, and pandemic. What began as an annual linguistic reflection of global consciousness has turned, almost absurdly, into an echo chamber of collective confusion.The question that lingers is not, what does “6-7” mean? But rather, how did meaning itself slip so quietly through the cracks of our language?
When words told stories , not just trends
There was a time when the Word of the Year was a chronicle of its era, a mirror to the human condition. When Dictionary.com chose “change” in 2010, it was the language of transformation, a reflection of a society hopeful after global turmoil. “Identity,” “complicit,” and “allyship” followed in later years, each anchoring itself in the moral and social reckonings of its time.Every chosen word had a story to be narrated, something about us, about our fears, our triumphs, our shifts in awareness. It was language as record, as responsibility. Now, we seem to have arrived at a different kind of mirror: One that distorts more than it reflects.
‘6-7’ and the era of faltering expression
The rise of “6-7” is a symptom of that distortion. Sparked by a 2024 rap lyric and propelled into virality by a TikTok clip featuring a boy’s exaggerated gestures, it spread like wildfire. No clear meaning, no fixed intent, just a sound, a motion, a shared moment of silliness that somehow transcended explanation.Teenagers repeated it endlessly; adults scrambled to decode it. Linguists shrugged. Dictionary.com admitted it, too, “still trying to figure out exactly what it means.”And yet, in its emptiness lies an uncomfortable truth. “6-7” captures something intangible about the current zeitgeist, the comfort with ambiguity, the obsession with irony, and the idea that not making sense is the sense.
The descent from meaningful to meme-able
Over the years, the Word of the Year evolved from signifying reflection to signifying virality. Words like “pandemic” and “allyship” once united people in shared understanding; now “6-7” unites them through a shared shrug.The shift mirrors a broader cultural fatigue, a world overstimulated, overconnected, and yet underwhelmed. In such a realm, the absurd often triumphs because the serious has lost its hold.Language has always evolved to meet the times. But when the times are dominated by fleeting attention and algorithmic influence, language too becomes transient, more performance than communication.As Oscar Wilde penned it beautifully years ago, “Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.” But what happens when our instruments no longer play a tune, only static?
The irony of connection
Dictionary.com defended its choice, noting that “6-7” remains “meaningful to those who use it because of the connection it fosters.” That might be true, but it also reveals the paradox of our age: We are connected without comprehension, linked through laughter rather than language.This is not necessarily decay, but transformation, though not one without cost. We are witnessing a generation that communicates through gestures, fragments, and memes rather than through words rooted in context or conviction.
From ‘change’ to confusion
If “change” once reflected hope, “6-7” reflects fatigue, a linguistic shrug that perfectly encapsulates our cultural moment. It’s not rebellion against meaning; it’s indifference to it.Maybe that’s why this phrase resonates so powerfully. In a society drowning in information yet starved of understanding, the absence of meaning feels, ironically, comforting. “6-7” offers relief from overanalysis, a way of saying nothing when everything feels too much.Still, the question remains: If our Word of the Year no longer tells our story, what does that say about the story we are living?Perhaps the evolution from “change” to “6-7” isn’t a linguistic accident, it’s a commentary: On us, On the way we communicate, and on the fading distinction between connection and noise.
