The Economist, a leading British news and current affairs magazine, wrote recently that “slop” is the word of the year 2025, “representative, if not of the whole year, at least of much of the feeling of living in it.”
It seems that this word “slop” was first officially described in the 15th century and referred to “muck” or “mud” at that time but has since evolved in usage to what I think most of us would now think of as something weakly nourishing; for example bad food or something that makes no sense.
The reason The Economist gives for awarding “slop” as word of the year is it has also gone on to describe the increasingly large amount of the stuff that one finds on the internet which reached an apogee in 2025. It’s moved from offering valuable information in the early days, to then weakly valuable and then on to the unfortunate situation we face today.
I think of note, and quite likely intentional, that in the same issue of The Economist there is a longer article regarding a now perceptible migration of consumers back to information which is produced by trusted sources, which are further verified and edited. In turn, the numbers of people who follow “slop” which all the while it entertains and reassures one’s own preconception, appear to be in decline.
Why am I writing about this seemingly trivial matter? Because that a major international magazine has chosen the word “slop” as its word of the year for the English-speaking world at the same time that it highlights a rekindling of interest in real information, only underlines to me the importance of reminding people in our industry of the value of good science. So that while the emphasis of the scientific endeavor on replicability, process and precision of data generation can be time consuming, not entertaining and produce results that don't always agree with a person's preconception, it nevertheless, when done well is providing you the best description of what is really going on.