This year has seen so many seismic events that Oxford University Dictionaries has expanded its word of the year to encompass several “Words of an Unprecedented Year”. From covidiot, superspreader and moonshot, the words have been chosen to reflect the “ethos, mood, or preoccupations” of 2020.
There were words to reflect the coronavirus pandemic, others to represent our growing use of technology as people had to adapt to working from home, and also words to describe the social movements witnessed around the globe this year.
The ‘Words of an Unprecedented Year’ report also includes lockdown, circuit-breaker and Zoombombing, defined as the practice of infiltrating Zoom video conference calls and posting offensive content. Others are bushfires, Covid-19, WFH, lockdown, circuit-breaker, support bubbles, keyworkers, furlough, Black Lives Matter and moonshot. Use of the word ‘pandemic’ has increased by more than 57,000% this year.
Oxford University report said the word coronavirus dates back to the 60s and was previously “mainly used by scientific and medical specialists”. But by April this year it had become one of the most frequently used nouns in the English language, exceeding even the usage of the word ‘time’. ‘Superspreader’ is a word dating back to the 70s, the report said, but it spiked in October when coronavirus cases spread in the White House.
Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford University Dictionaries, said, “I’ve never witnessed a year in language like the one we’ve just had. The Oxford team was identifying hundreds of significant new words and usages as the year unfolded, dozens of which would have been a slam dunk for Word of the Year at any other time. It’s both unprecedented and a little ironic – in a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other.”
Oxford University Press said it used “evidence-based data” to explore this year’s language developments. “We saw new words emerge, and historical words resurface with new significance, as the English language developed rapidly to keep pace with the political upheaval and societal tensions that defined the year,” they added.
Black Lives Matter, take a knee, and virtue signalling all appeared on the curated list. As did furlough, remotely and unmute.
Black Lives Matter – BLM – was in usage before George Floyd was killed; but today it has penetrated our public domain as never before. The Oxford University report said that the words impeachment and acquittal, relating to US President Donald Trump, were more prevalent at the early part of the year, whereas more recently, words such as mail-in, relating to US voting, were up 3,000% compared with 2019.
