Over the past few months, Jennifer Lawrence, World Series fans and right-wing influencers have all confessed to it. And now, the people behind the Oxford English Dictionary are getting into the act.
過去幾個月裡，珍妮佛·勞倫斯、職棒「世界大賽」的球迷和右翼網紅都承認做過這樣的事。現在，《牛津英語詞典》的編纂者們也參與了進來。
Oxford University Press has chosen “rage bait” — defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive” — as its 2025 Word of the Year.
牛津大學出版社將「引戰」(rage bait)選為其2025年的年度詞彙，它指的是「故意通過令人沮喪、挑釁或冒犯的方式引發憤怒或憤慨的網路內容」。
“Rage bait,” which triumphed over the more upbeat “biohack” and “aura farming,” goes back at least to 2002, when it appeared in a post on a Usenet discussion group to describe a particular kind of driver reaction to being flashed by another driver seeking to pass. Since then, it has become an increasingly common slang term for an attention-seeking form of online behavior.
「引戰」打敗了更樂觀的「健康整活」(biohack)和「培養人設」(aura farming)，這個詞至少可以追溯到2002年，當時它出現在Usenet的一個討論組中，用來描述某類司機對超車者閃燈示意時的反應。從那時起，它成了一個越來越普遍的俚語，用於指代一種尋求關注的網路行為。
Over the past year, according to Oxford’s data, frequency of use spiked by a factor of three. The two-syllable open-compound word lands with blunt force. It also sparks an immediate “aha.”
根據牛津大學的數據，在過去的一年裡，這個詞的使用頻率飆升了三倍。這個雙音節開放式複合詞具有強烈的衝擊力，能讓人瞬間恍然大悟。
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“Even if people have never heard it before, they instantly know what it means,” Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Languages, said in an interview. “And they want to talk about it.”
「即使以前從未聽說過這個詞，也能立刻知道它的意思，」牛津語言協會主席卡斯珀·格拉斯沃在接受採訪時說。「大家都想討論這個詞。」
Oxford’s Word of the Year, which began in 2004, is based on usage evidence drawn from its continually updated corpus of some 30 billion words, which is compiled from news sources across the English-speaking world. The idea is to identify new or emerging words with social and cultural significance, backed by data.
《牛津詞典》的年度詞彙評選始於2004年，其依據是從其不斷更新的約300億詞語料庫中提取的用法證據，這些語料庫彙集了英語世界新聞來源的語言數據，旨在通過數據來識別具有社會和文化意義的新詞或新興詞彙。
As in the past few years, Oxford’s experts chose a short list, and then invited the public to weigh in. This year, there was a new twist: The entries were turned into personified candidates, who sold themselves in on-trend vertical videos by the creative studio Uncommon. (Sample pitch: “What rage bait lacks in empathy, nuance or class they make up for in absolutely nothing.”)
和過去幾年一樣，牛津大學的專家們篩選出候選詞短名單，然後邀請公眾參與。今年有了一個小變化：入圍詞被變成了擬人化的候選人，由創意工作室Uncommon製作成時髦的豎屏影片為自己拉票。（舉個例子：「『引戰』確實沒同理心、沒分寸、沒格調，但它好在別的地方也一無是處。」）
The winner was chosen by Oxford’s committee, based on the vote (more than 30,000 people weighed in), public conversation and data analysis.
獲獎年度詞彙由牛津大學委員會根據投票（超過3萬人參與）、公眾討論和數據分析選出。
“The point of the Word of the Year is to encourage people to reflect on where we are as a culture, who we are at the moment, through the lens of words we use,” Grathwohl said. “The whole point is to create conversation.”
格拉斯沃說：「評選年度詞彙的目的是鼓勵人們通過我們使用的詞彙來反思當下文化圖景與自我定位，其核心價值在於激發社會對話。」
Over the years, winners have included “selfie” (2013), “post-truth” (2016), “toxic” (2018) and “vax” (2021). In the past few years, they have tended to have a distinctly Gen Z, very-online cast.
歷年獲獎詞彙包括「自拍」（selfie，2013年）、「後真相」（post-truth，2016年）、「有毒」（toxic，2018年）和「疫苗」（vax，2021年）。近幾年的詞彙往往帶有鮮明的Z世代特徵，極具網路屬性。
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Some winners, like 2023’s “rizz” (short for “charisma”) give a zingy new name to a familiar thing. “It’s sometimes about the intangible pleasure of saying and speaking a word,” Grathwohl said.
一些獲獎詞彙，比如2023年的「rizz」（charisma的簡寫，即魅力。——譯註）給一個熟悉的事物起了一個活潑的新名字。格拉斯沃解釋說：「有時純粹是出於說出某個詞語時那種難以言喻的愉悅感。」
Others, like the 2024 winner, “brain rot” (the supposed deterioration of mental capacity brought on by overconsumption of trivial online content), describe a new experience that many are feeling without knowing what to call it. And whether or not “brain rot” is real, the word is still going strong, with usage continuing to surge.
還有一些詞，比如2024年的獲獎詞「腦腐」（brain rot，指過度瀏覽瑣碎的網路內容導致的智力退化），描述了一種很多人都不知道該怎麼稱呼的新體驗。不管「腦腐」是不是真的，這個詞仍然很流行，使用頻率持續飆升。
This year’s finalists, Grathwohl said, reflect the ways that 2025 has been defined by “questions about who we really are, both online and offline,” and the ways the internet both manipulates us emotionally, and allows us to manipulate others.
格拉斯沃說，今年的入圍作品反映了2025年被定義為「關於我們自我認知的問題，無論是線上還是線下」，以及互聯網如何操縱我們的情感，也允許我們操縱他人。
“Aura farming,” defined as the careful “cultivation of an impressive, attractive or charismatic persona or personality,” arose around 2023, according to Oxford’s research. Usage nearly doubled over the past year, spiking in July in connection with a viral video of a young boy in Indonesia doing a motivational dance on the prow of a racing boat.
根據牛津大學的研究，「培養人設」的定義是精心「培養令人印象深刻的、有吸引力的或有魅力的人物或個性」，這一概念在2023年左右出現。在過去的一年裡，它的使用量幾乎翻了一番，並在7月因一個印尼少年在競速艇船頭跳勵志舞的熱轉影片而激增。
Linguistically, it merges a somewhat mystical Latin borrowing, aura, with a 15th-century word relating to the cultivation of crops. “What I love is the banal and the sublime put together,” Grathwohl said.
在語言學上，該詞融合了略帶神秘色彩的拉丁語借詞aura（光環）與15世紀指代農作物培育的詞彙。格拉斯沃說：「我喜歡的是這種平凡與崇高的結合。
“Biohack,” a verb describing attempts to “improve or optimize one’s physical or mental performance, health, longevity or well-being,” was first recorded around 2011. Its usage also doubled in the past year, aided by growing conversation among “broligarchs,” as Grathwohl put it, and other powerful people. (He noted an incident in September, when Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were caught on a hot mic talking about organ transplants and the possibility of living to 150.)
「健康整活」是一個動詞，描述的是「改善或優化一個人的身體或精神表現、健康、長壽或幸福」的嘗試，最早出現在2011年左右。過去一年間，這個詞的使用量翻倍增長。格拉斯沃指出，這得益於「兄弟寡頭」（broligarchs）等權勢階層間日益活躍的討論。（他提及九月的一則新聞：普丁與習近平在一場無意中被錄下的對話中談論器官移植及活到150歲的可能性。）
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“Rage bait” appeared in the headlines in early November after Jennifer Lawrence confessed to creating an anonymous TikTok handle so she could fight with movie fans online. And it’s something even lexicographers have been accused of peddling.
11月初，珍妮佛·勞倫斯承認創建了一個匿名抖音帳號，以便在網上與影迷打架，之後「引戰」這個詞出現在頭條新聞上。甚至連詞典編纂者都被指責在兜售這類內容。
In 2015, when Oxford chose the tears-of-joy emoji, some old-school wordniks were … not happy.
2015年，當牛津選擇了「笑哭」表情符號時，一些老派的詞彙愛好者表示……不滿。
“People feel so passionately, there’s no way to avoid rage-baiting a portion of the word-loving public,” Grathwohl said. “No matter what we choose, a bunch of people are going to flame out online.”
「人們的情緒如此激烈，以至於無法避免激怒一部分熱愛文字的公眾，」格拉斯沃說。「無論我們選擇什麼，都會有一群人在網上大肆攻擊。」