Cat Bristle - 15 September 2025

How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A Massachusetts woman complains that a digital highway sign that says Use Ya Blinkah is well-intentioned, but goes too far in making fun of the local dialect. Plus, if you’re puzzling over something—no problem. Just use your Clyde! Also, squatcho and squatchee, wuzzle and fuzzle, juke and jook, gnurr and oosse, the millennial pause and the Gen Z shake, eye dialect, an adverbial brain teaser, the Coanda effect, how to ask for rooiboos tea, and a clever neologism that means “dread.”

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