WORDS OF WARNING

‘Tradwife’, ‘delulu’ and ‘broligarchy’. The zeitgeist language making waves among Gen Alpha paints a troubling picture of the world they are grappling with

- By Helen Coffey

It would be tempting to hear the latest words to hit the Cambridge Dictionary and simply roll your eyes with disdain. “Skibidi”, “delulu”, “tradwife”, “broligarchy” – what have these to do with anyone over the age of 30, save being more evidence that our reign of cultural relevance is over?

I had to fight the desire to do this myself, a millennial now past the point of knowing what's what, let alone what's hot.

“Skibidi?”, I thought despondently; I didn’t even recognise the three syllables already so established as to have been accepted into the latest compilation of the English language.

But delve a little deeper, and the new zeitgeist vocab getting the official nod gives a slightly more disturbing insight into the state of the world right now - and the corresponding challenges faced by young people.

First off, before you shake your head and proclaim that these words represent nothing but a momentary fad, Cambridge Dictionary lexical programme manager Colin McIntosh has made it very clear that “we only add words where we think they'll have staying power”, adding that “internet culture is changing the English language”. This lies at the heart of it; TikTok and YouTube now hold enough sway that the lexicon itself is evolving around them.

Skibidi, for the uninitiated, derives from