Dictionary.com named “67” their word of the year this week, and Stephen Colbert is definitely not a fan of the decision. Raging against the choice on Thursday night, he mourned that, on a scale of one to 10 on how dumb he felt explaining the trend, the answer, was…well, you can guess.
The CBS host shamed the decision during his monologue, arguing that the word of the year has to actually be a word, not meaningless numbers. And indeed, they are meaningless. As Colbert explained, the trend comes from a song, in which the numbers literally have no meaning.
“For the uninitiated, 67 is a viral trend where, if anyone says the number six or the number seven, or if there’s any reason to talk about numbers at all, every young person within earshot goes ’67!’” Colbert detailed. “As in, what time do you get off work? 67! Or, how many cookies did you eat? 67! On a scale of one to five, how dumb does Stephen feel explaining this? 67!”
Colbert then noted that the trend has been particularly hard on high school and middle school teachers. Some have banned it in the classroom, while one teacher actually wrote a message to Dictionary.com asking them not to choose it as word of the year.
To those people, Colbert attempted to offer some comfort.
“Don’t worry, teachers,” he said. “If anything will kill this trend, it’s me mentioning it here on CBS where, and this is true, the median age of our viewers is 67.”
You can watch Stephen Colbert’s full monologue in the video above.
