Algospeak

A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2025 & NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 An incredible deep dive into how algorithms, social media and the internet are changing the way we communicate and think, from linguist and content creator Adam Aleksic (aka the @etymologynerd) 'No cap - this bruh slaps and slays.' - ADAM GRANT, author of Think Again Are we cooked? The internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. New slang emerges and goes viral overnight. Accents are shaped or erased on YouTube. Grammatical rules, loopholes, and patterns surface and transform our interactions, social norms and habits. And with over 7 billion internet users, the sheer volume of potential new words is astounding. In Algospeak, online etymologist Adam Aleksic embarks on an energetic, astonishing journey into language and the internet; revealing the bigger social story of how language shapes us, just as much as we shape it. PRAISE FOR ALGOSPEAK 'A must read for anyone seeking to understand how we communicate today.' - TAYLOR LORENZ, author of Extremely Online 'A gift to any word nerd.' - AMANDA MONTELL, author of The Age of Magical Overthinking and Cultish

Adam Aleksic is a linguist and content creator posting educational videos as the "Etymology Nerd" to an audience of over three million. As a linguistics student at Harvard College, he founded and served as president of the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. He's discussed online language on NPR, repeatedly contributed to The Washington Post, and his work has been mentioned in The New York Times, The Economist, and The Guardian. He's lectured on language and social media at Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and other top universities, including a TEDx talk at the University of Pennsylvania. Adam is based in New York City, where he spends a lot of time scrolling TikTok for "research."