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Brain rot isn’t new – but now we’re all talking about it | Letters

Fiona McPherson finds that the earliest usage dates from 1854With excellent timing, your article (From Chimpanzini Bananini to Ballerina Cappuccina: how gen alpha went wild for Italian brain rot animals, 25 June) appeared on the day that “brain rot” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.When researching the entry, we discovered that brain rot is nothing new. The earliest evidence of its usage that we found was in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden (1854); in it he lamented society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas in favour of simple ones, viewing it as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort. The term has been applied variously to reading too many books, watching too much television, and listening to “pimpley music”, bringing us up to date with the digital content that takes the blame currently. Continue reading...

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