Avocado hands, the word ‘boop,’ and middle seat weirdos

WeirdWeek-Avo
  • Congrats, you just survived the most dangerous time to be an avocado lover. Or maybe you didn’t, in which case you’re one of the thousands of people every year who cut their hands while slicing avocados — a phenomenon that peaks from April through July and is so common that surgeons have given it a name: “avocado hand.” As the creamy green fruit’s popularity has grown over the years, so has the frequency of its related injuries, which increased ninefold between 2013 and 2017 and continues to rise, according to researchers at Emory University.
  • Gen Z slang has officially entered the chat — and by chat, we mean the English lexicon. Among the Cambridge Dictionary’s 3.2k+ new entries for 2024 are several youth- and internet-friendly terms, like “chef’s kiss,” “boop,” “IYKYK,” and “the ick” — a term popularized by the reality show “Love Island” for which the dictionary offers this example: “I used to like Kevin, but when I saw him in that suit it gave me the ick.” Despite the fleeting nature of internet trends, the dictionary’s publishing manager, Wendalyn Nichols, told the BBC these words have “staying power.”
  • Disturbingly, there are people who prefer the middle seat on planes. A survey of 3.1k+ Americans revealed that 66.6% prefer a window seat, 31.7% opt for the aisle — and 1.7% like a middle seat, which is still too high but sort of makes sense, considering severe psychopathy affects roughly the same proportion of people.
New call-to-action
Topics: Weird Week

Related Articles

Get the 5-minute news brief keeping 2.5M+ innovators in the loop. Always free. 100% fresh. No bullsh*t.