new words from new york

things right now 65—6.29.26

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Sometimes I sense an exhaustion with the neologism Olympics. Portmanteaus, Germanic-inflected compounds, digital gobbledygook, and meme suffixes—most recently -maxxing and -slop.

And yet…the language engine that is the Internet chugs on.

Some of the eye-rolling stems from a desire for more thoughtful discourse. Something the academy has not been providing for twenty-some-odd years. And no, Substack is not providing this either.

Some of it stems from living in an era where the median age ticks ever upward and the number of young Americans declines. Perhaps rightfully, forty-year-olds resent the idea they should have to keep abreast of teenage slang.

Slang is supposed to annoy people. Its linguistic purpose is to create boundaries between subcultures, stymying outsiders from understanding what is being said.

But it’s also supposed to be fun. The friction is part of the pleasure.

In that vein, here are some new words I heard on a recent trip to New York.

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yachtstitute

/ˈjɒtstɪˌtuːt/ noun · informal, often derogatory

1. A person — typically a young woman — who cultivates the company of wealthy men aboard yachts and at attendant events (regattas, film festivals, resort seasons) in exchange for luxury, access, or payment. “How many yachtstitutes did you see at Cannes?”—my friend Lauren at Sant Ambroeus

2. (broadly) Anyone whose glamour is contingent on proximity to someone else’s boat. “He wasn’t crew and he wasn’t a guest — just a yachtstitute in good linen.”

plural yachtstitutes · (often used attributively: yachtstitute economy, yachtstitute season)

Origin: Blend of yacht + prostitute, following the productive slang pattern of -stitute coinages. Popularized in tabloid and social-media commentary on the Mediterranean superyacht circuit. First known use: 21st century (informal).

Synonyms: yacht girl, deckhand-adjacent (euph.), charter companion

Related forms: yachtstitution (noun)

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wordslip

/ˈwɜːrdslɪp/ noun

1. The process by which a word’s mistaken use — a malapropism, a hypercorrection, an inference drawn from its parts rather than its history — hardens into a standard sense, eventually displacing or rivalling the original. ”Gen Alpha’s new definition of preppy is a classic wordslip.”—my friend Paul walking home from another Paul’s Casablanca.

2. The resulting word, especially one caught mid-transition, meaning two contradictory things at once depending on the speaker’s age. ”Nonplussed is a live wordslip: to one generation stunned, to the next unbothered.”

Origin: Coined compound, word + slip, in the sense “small inadvertent error.” No attested usage.

Related forms: wordslipped (adjective, of a term already relocated); wordslippage (noun)

Examples:

• literally — hyperbole hardening into an intensifier, until the word answers to its own antonym.

• nonplussed — reanalysis from the parts (non- read as “not bothered”), producing a sense opposite to “bewildered.”

• prep — wholesale re-referencing: a class marker hollowed out and refilled with a color palette, by a cohort that never held the original referent.

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narcglasses

/ˈnɑːrkˌɡlæsɪz/ noun · plural, informal

1. Camera-equipped smart glasses, especially Snap’s Specs and Meta’s Glasses. “Does anyone even know if the narcglasses are on?”—discussing the Kylie Jenner campaign for her new Meta collaboration.

Origin: Coined compound of narc (informant, narcotics officer; by extension, anyone who surveils and reports) + glasses, on the model of beer goggles.

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brand victim

/ˈbrænd ˌvɪktɪm/ noun

1. An update of fashion victim for an era when the allegiance has spread past clothing to the entire field of consumption: a person whose identity is organized around the brands they buy — not merely overdressed but over-affiliated, performing membership in Erewhon, Stanley, Aesop, Rhode, Labubu as a substitute for taste or self.

2. (broadly) The consumer as unpaid marketing: someone who does the brand’s advertising for free, mistaking loyalty for identity. “The queue outside the drop was fifty brand victims deep before sunrise.”

plural brand victims · (often attributive: brand-victim economy)

Origin: Modeled on fashion victim, the term attributed to Oscar de la Renta for a person unable to recognize the boundaries of style — at risk, in the classic formulation, of becoming a “walking billboard.”

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notes on brand victims