The Oxford Word of the Year for 2025 is 'rage bait', a term describing online content deliberately crafted to provoke anger. While the selection highlights a defining feature of our digital discourse, it also sparks a broader conversation about the words we use and when they outlive their usefulness. Guardian columnist Zoe Williams contends that some terms, having caused more trouble than they're worth, should be formally retired. Her primary candidate? 'Mansplain'.
From Viral Neologism to Dictionary Entry
The journey of 'mansplain' is a modern linguistic tale. It first gained significant traction as a New York Times 'Word of the Year' in 2010, perfectly capturing a specific, frustrating experience common to many women: a man explaining something to them, often condescendingly, about a topic they are expert in. Its utility was undeniable, filling a lexical gap. By 2015, it was a runner-up for the Oxford Word of the Year, and its formal recognition came in 2018 with inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary.
However, its very popularity sowed the seeds of its problematic evolution. The term's net was cast wide, and critics argued it began to be misapplied to any instance of a man talking authoritatively, even when he was genuinely knowledgeable. This dilution sparked a backlash, sometimes humorously labelled a 'Mansplainers for Justice' movement, highlighting the term's shifting and contentious role in gender debates.
Political Weaponisation and Semantic Slide
The recent political fray in the UK demonstrates the term's slide into relativism. Chancellor Rachel Reeves invoked 'mansplaining' in a pre-budget interview, framing criticism of her policies through a gendered lens. This prompted a sharp retort from Kemi Badenoch, who accused the Chancellor of 'wallowing in self-pity and whining about misogyny and mansplaining' instead of defending her economic decisions.
The debate took a surreal turn when Badenoch claimed the budget was 'unchristian', arguing that early Christian times had no state welfare. This triggered a wave of historical corrections from commentators, many of them men, about the nature of the Roman state. While this could be seen as a classic case of condescending explanation, Williams argues it wasn't 'mansplaining' in the original sense—the critics simply knew more about the subject than Badenoch did. The episode underscored how the term has become a slippery rhetorical device, easily deployed to dismiss criticism rather than to describe a specific dynamic of gendered condescension.
The Case for Linguistic Decommission
Zoe Williams's core argument is that language must evolve, and sometimes that means retiring words that have become counterproductive. 'Mansplain', she suggests, has suffered from mission creep. Its original, precise meaning—describing a patronising explanation rooted in unconscious gender bias—has been blurred by overuse and political weaponisation. When a term can be simultaneously misused by a government minister, attacked by an opposition leader, and rendered inapplicable due to a recipient's sheer lack of baseline knowledge, its utility is severely compromised.
The selection of 'rage bait' as the 2025 Word of the Year serves as a backdrop for this reflection. While Oxford lexicographers track usage, Williams proposes a more active curatorial role for society: the ability to decommission words that foster more division than understanding. In the case of 'mansplain', the very conversations it was meant to clarify now often get lost in arguments about its own appropriateness, suggesting its time in our active vocabulary may have passed.
