Meara covers streaming service news for CNET. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism. When she's not writing, she likes to dote over her cat, sip black coffee ...

Love a good crossword puzzle? Word-game enthusiasts may be glad to know that the first-ever crossword puzzle was published around this time over a century ago. According to Guinness World Records, the ...

AI’s impact on our social media feeds has not gone unnoticed by one of America’s top dictionaries. Amidst the onslaught of content that has swept the web over the past 12 months, Merriam-Webster ...

The American dictionary defines slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” The human editors of the publisher said that the slop ...

Some of the most popular spots on the web battled an influx of AI-generated slop throughout 2025. Some of the most popular spots on the web battled an influx of AI-generated slop throughout 2025. is a ...

Like most tools, generative AI models can be misused. And when the misuse gets bad enough that a major dictionary notices, you know it has become a cultural phenomenon. On Sunday, Merriam-Webster ...

Creepy, zany and demonstrably fake content is often called "slop." The word's proliferation online, in part thanks to the widespread availability of generative artificial intelligence, landed it the ...

"Gerrymander," "performative" and "touch grass" were also popular words users of the dictionary looked up in the past year. By Etan Vlessing Canada Bureau Chief In a world of digital noise and clutter ...

Runners up included "gerrymander," "touch grass," "performative" and "tariff." It's messy, it's meaningless and it's everywhere: "slop" has been crowned as Merriam-Webster's 2025 Word of the Year. The ...