And when you’re capturing the spoken word, slang is an essential part of your vocabulary!

enshittification

babygirl

skibidi

ice cream so good

millennial pause

gyatt

let them cook

LFG

tush push

delulu

stenographer

The internet keeps on supplying us with an endless stream of trendy slang words that come from anywhere—from bizarre TikTok streams and YouTube videos featuring sentient toilets—and everywhere in between.

Why are grown men called babygirl? What is the scuttlebutt on tush push and gyatt? What does it mean to be delulu? Are we doomed to a fate of enshittification? We have all of the answers to questions you may have been too scared to ask.

Content Note: As you might expect, some of these terms contain profanity.

enshittification

What it means: Enshittification is the gradual degradation of an online platform or service’s functionality, as part of a cycle in which the platform or service first offers benefits to users to attract them, then pursues more and more profits at the expense of users. You can probably guess why enshittification has become a popular word recently. 

Where it comes from: Enshittification was popularized by Canadian writer Cory Doctorow, who has used the word to describe the decline in quality of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.

Why linguists are interested: The American Dialect Society (ADS) chose enshittification as its 2023 Word of the Year. It was described as a “sadly apt” term to describe the decline of online platforms. It also earned points for being “instantly memorable” and having the ability to be used in a wide variety of contexts. 

Our lexicographers say: At Dictionary.com, we integrate slang (like enshittification) into our dictionaries to document its role in language evolution and to acknowledge its informal but significant impact. Lexicographers evaluate a slang term’s longevity and widespread use, analyzing its frequency, contexts—including internet culture and social media— and recognition by authoritative bodies, such as the ADS designation of enshittification as Word of the Year.

babygirl

What it means: Babygirl is a term of endearment that refers to attractive older male celebrities or fictional male characters. Babygirl is especially likely to be used to refer to a male that is seen as vulnerable, sensitive, cute, or submissive.  

Where it comes from: Traditionally, babygirl was a term of endearment used by men to refer to women. The reversal of babygirl to refer to men may originate with a photoshopped image of the comic Mob Psycho 100 that went viral. The trend seems to have been largely motivated by the humor of referring to grown men by the cutesy term babygirl. 

skibidi

What it means: Skibidi is a nonsense word or sound without a specific meaning.  

Where it comes from: We promise you that the next sentence is, in fact, true. The “word” skibidi comes from the extremely popular YouTube series “Skibidi Toilet,” which features sentient toilets with human heads battling humanoids with electronic devices for heads. The series has a theme song based on a remix of the song “Dom Dom Yes Yes” by Bulgarian singer Biser King. The word skibidi is an approximation of one of the nonsensical words Biser King says during the song. 

ice cream so good

What it means: Ice cream so good is a catchphrase of TikTok streamer PinkyDoll. 

Where it comes from: On Tiktok Live, viewers can send money to a streamer, and the donations are represented on-screen by stickers resembling objects. Ice cream so good was TikTok user PinkyDoll’s usual response for receiving a donation represented by an ice cream cone sticker. PinkyDoll is an NPC streamer, a term that refers to a person who streams themselves acting like a robotic NPC (nonplayer character) from a video game. The phrase ice cream so good is commonly used to refer either to PinkyDoll or NPC streaming in general.   

Our lexicographers say: Examples like skibidi and ice cream so good show the same hallmarks of informality, memorability, and timeliness as slang classics like booyah or keep on truckin’.

millennial pause

What it means: Millennial pause refers to a short delay before a person starts speaking when recording themselves for a video. 

Where it comes from: The term millennial pause is credited to TikTok user nisipisa, who used it in a November 2021 TikTok video about singer Taylor Swift. The millennial pause results from a person quickly checking that their phone is recording before speaking. The term millennial pause is often used by younger generations to playfully accuse millennials of getting too old for the internet. A similar term is used to describe the behavior of Generation Z. The Gen Z shake is the Gen Z equivalent to the millennial pause and refers to a phone shaking as a person puts it down at the beginning of a recorded video.  

gyatt

What it means: Gyatt is a slang exclamation of surprise or excitement. Gyatt is most commonly used as an exclamation in reaction to seeing a large butt (that is, the buttocks) and may be used as a noun to mean a large butt.

Where it comes from: Gyatt is an alteration of the word God in the phrase “God damn,” sometimes written as “Gyatt dayum.” The use of gyatt to refer to voluptuous women was popularized by Twitch streamer YourRAGE. 

let them cook

What it means: Let them cook is a slang phrase used as a command to let a person freely do something they are good at, without interference. The phrase is used with various pronoun constructions, such as let him cook or let her cook. 

Where it comes from: Let them cook and its many variations are often attributed to rapper Lil B, who has used the phrase since at least 2010. Lil B refers to himself as a “master chef” and uses the word cook in reference to his rapping prowess. The slang spread and became popular among sports fans to refer to letting an athlete play without holding them back. 

LFG

What it means: LFG is an abbreviation for “let’s fucking go.” It is often used to express hype and to rally others to action. 

Where it comes from: LFG is simply an abbreviation of “let’s fucking go.” This usage of LFG dates back to at least the early 2010s. The phrase let’s fucking go seems to have become more popular since the early 2020s. 

tush push

What it means: The tush push is a football play in which the quarterback receives the ball and is immediately pushed from behind by teammates. It’s a version of the play known as a quarterback sneak.

Where it comes from: The tush push play was popularized by the 2022 Philadelphia Eagles, who used it with significant success to reach the Super Bowl. The tush push name became popular in sports media to refer to the play following the 2022 season as the Eagles continued to use it and other teams adopted it. The play is also commonly referred to as the Brotherly Shove due to its close association with the Eagles, who play in Philadelphia, nicknamed the City of Brotherly Love.  

delulu

What it means: Delulu is a slang shortening of the word delusional. It is especially used to describe superfans or dating partners who display odd or extreme behavior.

Where it comes from: The slang delulu seems to have emerged from the Korean pop music (K-pop) fan community. As early as 2013, it was used to mock delusional fans who believed they could somehow become romantically involved with celebrities.  

Learn some of the slang terms that K-pop stans (delulu or not) have contributed to language within and beyond the fandom.

stenographer

What it means: Stenographer is a term for a journalist who uncritically repeats the words of politicians and other powerful individuals.

Where it comes from: A stenographer is a person whose job it is to copy down verbatim every word said in a courtroom. The slang term stenographer has been negatively used in media criticism since at least the 2000s. It is typically used by media critics who feel that journalists should use their platform to critically analyze and factcheck the words of the powerful rather than simply repeat them. In this context, the word stenographer is negatively equating a journalist to a person who simply writes down every word they hear without checking to see if those words are true.   

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Hulton Archive // Getty Images

‘Waffen-SS’

This German recruitment poster portrays a helmeted soldier in profile, staring into the distance, with the words “Waffen-SS” and “Eintritt Nach Vollendetem 17 Lebensjahr,” meaning recruits must be at least 17 years old. The Waffen-SS was the military arm of the feared SS elite security force in Nazi Germany and included Adolf Hitler’s bodyguards and battalions that ran concentration camps.

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Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS/Corbis // Getty Images

‘Buy War Bonds’

Looking more like a watercolor painting than propaganda, the “Buy War Bonds” poster shows a flag-bearing Uncle Sam in the clouds, directing troops brandishing bayonets. The godly image conveys a sense of the divine virtue of the Allied effort against Axis forces.

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David Pollack/Corbis // Getty Images

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‘She’s a WOW’

American illustrator Adolph Treidler created several posters during World War II celebrating Women Ordnance Workers (WOWs), who made military materials such as weapons and munitions. The motivational poster shows a beautiful woman tackling a traditionally male job with the line, “She’s a WOW.”

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Hulton Archives // Getty Images

‘When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Hitler!’

The “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Hitler!” poster calls upon Americans to carpool and conserve fuel for military use. It was created by American artist Weimer Pursell, who designed well-known advertising for Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Winchester Rifles, and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.

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David Pollack/Corbis // Getty Images

‘He’s Watching You’

The menacing eyes of a helmeted enemy soldier dominate this U.S. government poster that reads, “He’s watching you,” cautioning Americans that spies could lurk anywhere. A survey of the public by the government’s Office of Facts and Figures in 1942 determined many viewers misinterpreted the poster, with some mistaking the German helmet for the Liberty Bell. The Office of War Information was created later that year to oversee poster production and control messaging.

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U.S. National Archives

‘Food Is a Weapon’

The U.S. Office of War Information’s “Food is a Weapon” poster was part of a campaign to trim food waste amid shortages and rationing. The admonition to “eat it all” also reminded Americans of the need to stay healthy and strong as the war raged.

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Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS/Corbis // Getty Images

‘Plant a Victory Garden’

“Plant a Victory Garden” shows a soldier and a gardener chatting over a white picket fence with the words “I see we’re fighting the war together.” Americans grew their own vegetables and fruits in victory gardens as commercial crops and transportation were taken up by the war effort, and food rationing was imposed. The victory garden campaign was employed to remind Americans they could pitch in and show patriotism in their own yard. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden of her own on the lawn of the White House.

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Fotosearch // Getty Images

‘Freedom Shall Prevail’

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23 / 30

Hulton Archive // Getty Images

‘Waffen-SS’

This German recruitment poster portrays a helmeted soldier in profile, staring into the distance, with the words “Waffen-SS” and “Eintritt Nach Vollendetem 17 Lebensjahr,” meaning recruits must be at least 17 years old. The Waffen-SS was the military arm of the feared SS elite security force in Nazi Germany and included Adolf Hitler’s bodyguards and battalions that ran concentration camps.

24 / 30

Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS/Corbis // Getty Images

‘Buy War Bonds’

Looking more like a watercolor painting than propaganda, the “Buy War Bonds” poster shows a flag-bearing Uncle Sam in the clouds, directing troops brandishing bayonets. The godly image conveys a sense of the divine virtue of the Allied effort against Axis forces.

25 / 30

David Pollack/Corbis // Getty Images

Share Capturing Voices

‘She’s a WOW’

American illustrator Adolph Treidler created several posters during World War II celebrating Women Ordnance Workers (WOWs), who made military materials such as weapons and munitions. The motivational poster shows a beautiful woman tackling a traditionally male job with the line, “She’s a WOW.”

26 / 30

Hulton Archives // Getty Images

‘When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Hitler!’

The “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Hitler!” poster calls upon Americans to carpool and conserve fuel for military use. It was created by American artist Weimer Pursell, who designed well-known advertising for Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Winchester Rifles, and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.

27 / 30

David Pollack/Corbis // Getty Images

‘He’s Watching You’

The menacing eyes of a helmeted enemy soldier dominate this U.S. government poster that reads, “He’s watching you,” cautioning Americans that spies could lurk anywhere. A survey of the public by the government’s Office of Facts and Figures in 1942 determined many viewers misinterpreted the poster, with some mistaking the German helmet for the Liberty Bell. The Office of War Information was created later that year to oversee poster production and control messaging.

28 / 30

U.S. National Archives

‘Food Is a Weapon’

The U.S. Office of War Information’s “Food is a Weapon” poster was part of a campaign to trim food waste amid shortages and rationing. The admonition to “eat it all” also reminded Americans of the need to stay healthy and strong as the war raged.

29 / 30

Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS/Corbis // Getty Images

‘Plant a Victory Garden’

“Plant a Victory Garden” shows a soldier and a gardener chatting over a white picket fence with the words “I see we’re fighting the war together.” Americans grew their own vegetables and fruits in victory gardens as commercial crops and transportation were taken up by the war effort, and food rationing was imposed. The victory garden campaign was employed to remind Americans they could pitch in and show patriotism in their own yard. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden of her own on the lawn of the White House.

30 / 30

Fotosearch // Getty Images

‘Freedom Shall Prevail’

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According to U.S. law, if a military service member commits mutiny, attempts mutiny or even fails to report a mutiny, that person “shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.”

According to U.S. history, however, if tens of thousands of military service members commit mutiny en masse, they won’t be punished at all. In fact, the president just might capitulate to their demands.

That’s more or less what happened in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Veterans have often wielded outsize political influence — catered to as voters, recruited as candidates and rewarded with government benefits — and the number of veteran advocacy groups has exploded in recent years. But few times have they flexed their political muscle as they did in 1946, when huge numbers of the very fighters who had just defeated the Axis powers directly challenged their commanders with a demand to return home and, miraculously, won.

The story began just after the war concluded with Japan’s surrender in August 1945. That same month, threatened with left-wing independence movements in its far-flung overseas territories and across Asia, the U.S. government decided that rather than fully demobilize the military, it would maintain a troop force of 2.5 million.

That did not go over well with the soldiers’ families, who bombarded their congressional representatives with photos of children missing their fathers and pairs of baby shoes with tags reading “Bring Daddy home.” Washington relented, and soldiers packed their bags, until President Harry S. Truman panicked at the “dangerous speed” of demobilization and ordered a slowdown in January 1946.

Now it was the troops’ turn to put up a fight.

The first protests took place in the Philippines, a U.S. colony that had suffered untold repression and slaughter in the 50 years since Spain handed it over in the Spanish-American War. During World War II, the United States had fought to end a brutal occupation by the Japanese. Then, more than 20,000 American soldiers marched in Manila, demanding to return home.

Another 20,000 demonstrated in Honolulu. Three thousand joined them in Korea, and 5,000 in Kolkata. In Guam, 3,500 Air Force troops staged a hunger strike, while 18,000 soldiers pooled money to send a cable to journalists making their case for repatriation.

The armed forces were segregated at the time, and all 250 members of the all-Black 823rd Engineer Aviation Battalion in Burma sent a letter to Truman, saying they were “disgusted with undemocratic American foreign policy” and did not want to “take the field in league with the alien rulers against the freedom revolts of the oppressed peoples.”

When Lt. Gen. W.D. Styler, the Army’s commanding general in the West Pacific, addressed the troops on the radio, they drowned him out with boos. When Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson landed on Guam, service members protested and burned him in effigy.

Truman told an aide that the protests were “plain mutiny.” And yet just one day after the biggest protests kicked off in Manila, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that the military would not discipline the protesting soldiers because there “had been no acts of violence or disorder.”

Then the government gave in to the demonstrators and began a rapid drawdown of troops. A year and a half later, the Army had shrunk to fewer than 1 million men.

So how did they get away with it? Partly, the GIs recognized how much leverage they had after fighting and winning a broadly popular war.

“There’s an understanding that they have a lot of power, and they’re not all gonna get executed,” said Daniel Immerwahr, a Northwestern University historian and author of “How to Hide an Empire,” a history of U.S. imperialism. “It’s an amazing moment, when so much has been invested in the war about the importance of these men and the sacrifice they’re making. And they’re learning to flex that power politically.”

Truman’s approval rating was plummeting at the time, and the last thing he wanted to do was make enemies of the young men the country overwhelmingly viewed as heroes. Three weeks after the protests began, he complained to Sen. Harley Kilgore (D-W.Va.) that the protesters had been “babied” and “spoiled” by their officers, but he added hopelessly, “I know they have practically ruined our standing with the people with whom we have to deal around the world, and there isn’t very much that can be done about it now.”

But the demonstrators weren’t just capitalizing on their political clout; they were also taking advantage of skills gained and lessons learned from stateside social movements that were similarly challenging existing hierarchies.

“This comes at a critical moment in the U.S. relationship to the wider world, as the U.S. is establishing primacy in the world, but also as a whole churn of domestic tensions are taking place: over class and labor issues, over Jim Crow and race, and over what the U.S. role will be in the world,” said Tejasvi Nagaraja, a Cornell University historian writing a book on the social movements of the World War II generation.

Some of the protest leaders in Manila and elsewhere had been prominent labor activists at home, and they knew how to use their negotiating leverage to get what they wanted. Meanwhile, the March on Washington Movement had been pushing for an end to military segregation, and Black regiments overseas took up similar protests.

“Within the African American regiments, there had been a wave of protests and work stoppages and things that were called mutiny through the World War II years, where African American men and women experienced labor human rights violations and exploitative labor conditions, they experienced carceral conditions with a Jim Crow military justice system, and they saw even their deployments and the speed of their demobilization in the scheme of this racial apartheid,” Nagaraja said.

The 823rd Engineer Aviation Battalion’s letter to Truman, then, wasn’t so much a radical break as an escalation of ongoing protests against racial injustice within a military carrying out what the soldiers saw as a racially unjust campaign in Asia.

The 1946 protests showed the country, and veterans themselves, the power that veterans have to shape foreign policy. In a sense, they gave license to subsequent generations of veterans to voice their critiques, including some who are now questioning the wisdom of the 20-year Afghanistan war that ended with a humiliating withdrawal this year.

“We can’t take for granted the notion that the service member or the veteran is a passive, conservative supporter of U.S. foreign policy,” Nagaraja said. He noted that newer veterans groups, such as About Face and Common Defense, have built on the legacy of the 1946 protests and “challenged a very tokenized identity politics of the veteran as someone who’s saluted at sports games but we don’t actually hear from very much.”

Quotes For Every Day Of Black History Month

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Black History Month, or African-American History Month, is observed in the United States every year in February. Throughout the month, institutions and schools acknowledge and share the contributions, achievements, and experiences of Black Americans. With the following 29 quotes—one for each day of the month of February 2024—we are putting the focus on the words of Black Americans.

1.

Black history isn’t a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that.
—Karyn Parsons, writer, actor, and lead in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 2014

separate

Separate is one of those words that can be difficult to spell correctly—many people feel tempted to turn that first a into an e. The trick is to remember that there are two e’s separated by two a’s. Speaking of separation, separate comes from the Latin sēparātus, meaning roughly “to put apart.”

2.

You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.
—Ta-Nehisi Coates, writer; Between the World and Me, 2015

consciousness

Consciousness is “the state of being conscious; awareness of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.” Being conscious is not the same as having a conscience, or “the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives,” although the two are closely related.

3.

Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations.
—Stacey Abrams, politician and activist; Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change, 2018

seductive

Seductive is an adjective meaning “enticing; beguiling; captivating.” The root of the word is the Latin sēdūcere meaning “to lead aside.” In other words, something that is seductive might seem appealing but could lead you astray.

4.

The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin, even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they’re manifestations of the same thing.
—Mae Jemison, astronaut, 2002

manifestation

Manifestation here means an “outward or perceptible indication; materialization.” Jemison is here saying that science and the arts are both examples of human understanding of the world.

5.

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
—Audre Lorde, writer and activist; A Burst of Light, 1988

self-indulgence

Self-indulgence is the act of indulging, or giving in to, one’s own desires, passions, whims, etc. especially without restraint. Self-indulgence has a negative connotation, implying that the person cares more about themselves than others. Lorde here contrasts negative self-indulgence with positive self-preservation.

6.

I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he’s wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.
—Malcolm X, civil rights activist; Oxford Union Debate, 1964

angel

Angels play an important role in the Abrahamic religions. There is even a word for the study of angels: angelology. Here, Malcolm X uses angel figuratively to mean “a person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, or kindliness.”

7.

Rule-following, legal precedence, and political consistency are not more important than right, justice, and plain common-sense.
—W.E.B. Du Bois, sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist; Black Reconstruction, 1935

precedence

Precedence is a noun that literally means “the fact of preceding in time; antedating.” In other words, that which came first. Legal precedence refers specifically to “a legal decision serving as a rule or pattern in future similar cases,” or precedent.

8.

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.
—Angela Davis, civil rights activist, and academic, 2014

radically

The word radically means “thoroughly; completely; fundamentally.” A “radical transform[ation]” is one that changes things from the very bottom all the way to the top.

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9.

History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.
—Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States, 2011

contagious

The word contagious literally refers to disease that can be spread “by bodily contact with an infected person or object.” But Michelle Obama uses the word figuratively to mean “tending to spread from person to person.”

10.

I really think a champion is defined not by their wins, but by how they can recover when they fall.
—popularly attributed to Serena Willams, tennis star, 2012

champion

A champion is “a person who has defeated all opponents in a competition.” The word comes from the Latin campus (“field, battlefield”).

11.

It’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live.
—popularly attributed to Nina Simone, singer

duty

Duty (plural: duties) has a variety of meanings, chiefly “something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation.” One’s duty is related to what is due or “owed.”

12.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
—James Baldwin, writer; “As Much Truth As One Can Bear,” 1962

face

While face often refers to the front part of the head, this quote from James Baldwin uses it as a verb to mean “to look toward or in the direction of” or “to confront directly.” Faced is the past participle of the verb face; it does not mean “having a specified kind of face,” as in two-faced.

13.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.
—bell hooks, writer, feminist, and academic; interview with Maya Angelou in Shambhala Sun, 1998

whim

Whim, short for whim-wham, is a noun meaning “an odd or capricious notion or desire; a sudden or freakish fancy.” If you are overtaken by a whim, you are driven to do something seemingly out of nowhere.

14.

The discussion of representation is one that has been repeated over and over again, and the solution has always been that it’s up to us to support, promote, and create the images we want to see.
—Issa Rae, actor, writer, and producer, creator of Insecure; The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, 2015

representation

The word representation is a noun with various meanings, but essentially it means “the act of representing” or “the state of being represented.” In this context, Issa Rae is using representation to refer to the presence and image of Black people in film, TV, and culture more generally.

15.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
—Muhammad Ali, boxer and activist; Ebony, 1977

courageous

The word courageous means “possessing or characterized by courage; brave.” If you’ve ever heard the expression “to show heart,” meaning “brave” or “valiant,” the origin of this word will not surprise you: it comes from the Old French cuer meaning “heart.”

16.

Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people, the beauty within themselves.
—Langston Hughes, writer and activist, 1924

mission

Mission has a variety of meanings, but Langston Hughes is using it here to mean “an important goal or purpose that is accompanied by strong conviction; a calling or vocation.”

17.

[T]his country was built on the bones, the work, the labor, the lives of black bodies. It continues to profit from that exploited labor.
—Malkia Cyril, poet, activist, and founder of the Center for Media Justice, 2016

exploit

Exploit when used as a noun means “a striking or notable deed,” but when used as a verb, it means something else altogether. To exploit means “to use selfishly for one’s own ends.” If someone’s labor is exploited, they are being taken advantage of for someone else’s gain.

18.

White Americans desire to be free from a past they do not want to remember, while Black Americans remain bound to a past they can never forget.
—Nikole Hannah-Jones, journalist; The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, 2021

bound

The word bound means “tied; in bonds.” The word choice here is symbolic, because it recalls the bondage of slavery that Black Americans endured.

19.

I want kids to learn that, yes, it’s okay to acknowledge that you’re good or even great at something.
—Simone Biles, Olympic gymnast; Marie Claire, 2021

acknowledge

Acknowledge is a verb meaning “to admit to be real or true; recognize the existence, truth, or fact of.” This word choice is interesting here, because acknowledge often implies making a statement reluctantly, about something previously denied. It suggests Biles thinks kids might be shy about talking about their accomplishments.

20.

Maybe in this life you get all kinds of soulmates, multiple people who vibrate at the same level you do.
—Samantha Irby, writer; We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, 2017

soulmates

A soulmate is “a person with whom one has a strong affinity, shared values and tastes, and often a romantic bond.” Believe it or not, the word soulmate was first recorded around 1815–25.

21.

Becoming a scientist meant I no longer had to wait for someone to give me the answer.
—Danielle N. Lee, biologist, 2014

scientist

As you may already know, a scientist is “an expert in science, especially one of the physical or natural sciences.” What you may not know is that scientist comes from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge.”

22.

The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people.
—Chadwick Boseman, actor; CNET Magazine, 2017

villain

The actor Chadwick Boseman is best known for his role as the superhero Black Panther. In this quote, he reflects on the difference between heroes and villains, or “a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.” Villain comes from the Middle English vilain meaning “churlish rustic, serf.”

23.

Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.
—Toni Morrison, writer; Nobel Prize Lecture, 1993

caul

The word caul has a variety of meanings. Following the clothing metaphor in this quote (“wide skirt … stitch”), caul here means “a net lining in the back of a woman’s cap or hat.” It can also refer to the part of the embryonic sac that covers a baby’s head.

24.

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.
—Zora Neale Hurston, writer and anthropologist; Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942

agony

Agony is a horrible feeling; the word means “extreme and generally prolonged pain; intense physical and mental suffering.” It comes from the Latin Latin agōnia meaning “contest” or “struggle.”

25.

None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody—a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns—bent down and helped us pick up our boots.
—popularly attributed to Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court justice

bootstrap

A bootstrap is “a loop of leather or cloth sewn at the top rear of a boot to facilitate pulling it on.” In this context, Thurgood Marshall is using bootstraps figuratively to mean “relying entirely on one’s efforts and resources.”

26.

Freedom, in the broadest and highest sense, has never been a bequest; it has been a conquest.
—Booker T. Washington, writer, orator, and leader; “An Address on Abraham Lincoln,” 1909

bequest

A bequest is “a disposition in a will” or “a legacy.” Basically, a bequest is something someone leaves or gives you.

27.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
—Martin Luther King, Jr., Baptist minister and civil rights activist; In My Own Words, 2002

finite

The word finite is an adjective that means “having bounds or limits; measurable.” The antonym of finite is infinite, or “immeasurably great.”

28.

There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if only we know how to find it.
—Ida B. Wells, investigative journalist and civil rights activist; Crusade for Justice, 1970

remedy

A remedy is “something that corrects or removes an evil of any kind.” In legal contexts, it also means “legal redress; the legal means of enforcing a right or redressing a wrong.” It’s possible that Ida B. Wells had both of these meanings of the word in mind when she wrote this.

29.

The crowning glory of American citizenship is that it may be shared equally by people of every nationality, complexion and sex …
—Mary Ann Shadd Cary, to the House Judiciary Committee on the Rights of Women to Vote, 1871

crowning glory

This year, we have one bonus quote for February 29. The phrase crowning glory means “the greatest or most noble aspect of something.” The phrase has religious implications, as glory comes from the Latin gloria, which is often used to reference the greatness of God. A crowning glory is the (here, metaphorical) halo or crown that represents holiness or quality.

Women of color like Mary Ann Shadd Cary were instrumental in the fight for the right to vote and more. You can read the words of women of color whose voices continue to inspire us in 19 Trailblazing Quotes From Women Of Color On The Pursuit Of Suffrage.

According to U.S. law, if a military service member commits mutiny, attempts mutiny or even fails to report a mutiny, that person “shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.”

According to U.S. history, however, if tens of thousands of military service members commit mutiny en masse, they won’t be punished at all. In fact, the president just might capitulate to their demands.

That’s more or less what happened in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Veterans have often wielded outsize political influence — catered to as voters, recruited as candidates and rewarded with government benefits — and the number of veteran advocacy groups has exploded in recent years. But few times have they flexed their political muscle as they did in 1946, when huge numbers of the very fighters who had just defeated the Axis powers directly challenged their commanders with a demand to return home and, miraculously, won.

The story began just after the war concluded with Japan’s surrender in August 1945. That same month, threatened with left-wing independence movements in its far-flung overseas territories and across Asia, the U.S. government decided that rather than fully demobilize the military, it would maintain a troop force of 2.5 million.

That did not go over well with the soldiers’ families, who bombarded their congressional representatives with photos of children missing their fathers and pairs of baby shoes with tags reading “Bring Daddy home.” Washington relented, and soldiers packed their bags, until President Harry S. Truman panicked at the “dangerous speed” of demobilization and ordered a slowdown in January 1946.

Now it was the troops’ turn to put up a fight.

The first protests took place in the Philippines, a U.S. colony that had suffered untold repression and slaughter in the 50 years since Spain handed it over in the Spanish-American War. During World War II, the United States had fought to end a brutal occupation by the Japanese. Then, more than 20,000 American soldiers marched in Manila, demanding to return home.

Another 20,000 demonstrated in Honolulu. Three thousand joined them in Korea, and 5,000 in Kolkata. In Guam, 3,500 Air Force troops staged a hunger strike, while 18,000 soldiers pooled money to send a cable to journalists making their case for repatriation.

The armed forces were segregated at the time, and all 250 members of the all-Black 823rd Engineer Aviation Battalion in Burma sent a letter to Truman, saying they were “disgusted with undemocratic American foreign policy” and did not want to “take the field in league with the alien rulers against the freedom revolts of the oppressed peoples.”

When Lt. Gen. W.D. Styler, the Army’s commanding general in the West Pacific, addressed the troops on the radio, they drowned him out with boos. When Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson landed on Guam, service members protested and burned him in effigy.

Truman told an aide that the protests were “plain mutiny.” And yet just one day after the biggest protests kicked off in Manila, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that the military would not discipline the protesting soldiers because there “had been no acts of violence or disorder.”

Then the government gave in to the demonstrators and began a rapid drawdown of troops. A year and a half later, the Army had shrunk to fewer than 1 million men.

So how did they get away with it? Partly, the GIs recognized how much leverage they had after fighting and winning a broadly popular war.

“There’s an understanding that they have a lot of power, and they’re not all gonna get executed,” said Daniel Immerwahr, a Northwestern University historian and author of “How to Hide an Empire,” a history of U.S. imperialism. “It’s an amazing moment, when so much has been invested in the war about the importance of these men and the sacrifice they’re making. And they’re learning to flex that power politically.”

Truman’s approval rating was plummeting at the time, and the last thing he wanted to do was make enemies of the young men the country overwhelmingly viewed as heroes. Three weeks after the protests began, he complained to Sen. Harley Kilgore (D-W.Va.) that the protesters had been “babied” and “spoiled” by their officers, but he added hopelessly, “I know they have practically ruined our standing with the people with whom we have to deal around the world, and there isn’t very much that can be done about it now.”

But the demonstrators weren’t just capitalizing on their political clout; they were also taking advantage of skills gained and lessons learned from stateside social movements that were similarly challenging existing hierarchies.

“This comes at a critical moment in the U.S. relationship to the wider world, as the U.S. is establishing primacy in the world, but also as a whole churn of domestic tensions are taking place: over class and labor issues, over Jim Crow and race, and over what the U.S. role will be in the world,” said Tejasvi Nagaraja, a Cornell University historian writing a book on the social movements of the World War II generation.

Some of the protest leaders in Manila and elsewhere had been prominent labor activists at home, and they knew how to use their negotiating leverage to get what they wanted. Meanwhile, the March on Washington Movement had been pushing for an end to military segregation, and Black regiments overseas took up similar protests.

“Within the African American regiments, there had been a wave of protests and work stoppages and things that were called mutiny through the World War II years, where African American men and women experienced labor human rights violations and exploitative labor conditions, they experienced carceral conditions with a Jim Crow military justice system, and they saw even their deployments and the speed of their demobilization in the scheme of this racial apartheid,” Nagaraja said.

The 823rd Engineer Aviation Battalion’s letter to Truman, then, wasn’t so much a radical break as an escalation of ongoing protests against racial injustice within a military carrying out what the soldiers saw as a racially unjust campaign in Asia.

The 1946 protests showed the country, and veterans themselves, the power that veterans have to shape foreign policy. In a sense, they gave license to subsequent generations of veterans to voice their critiques, including some who are now questioning the wisdom of the 20-year Afghanistan war that ended with a humiliating withdrawal this year.

“We can’t take for granted the notion that the service member or the veteran is a passive, conservative supporter of U.S. foreign policy,” Nagaraja said. He noted that newer veterans groups, such as About Face and Common Defense, have built on the legacy of the 1946 protests and “challenged a very tokenized identity politics of the veteran as someone who’s saluted at sports games but we don’t actually hear from very much.”