I have done “word walls” in the past at the end of the year: calling out those words that became popular in the preceding year. But official Word of the Year,  otherwise know as WODY, is a pretty common phenomenon. Most dictionaries and linguistic societies choose a WODY, or even words of the year in different

categories. And more about that later in this post. But to begin, my word wall for 2020.

 

No doubt about it: 2020 was a year. Of course the main event was Covid-19, But there was also a presidential election and lots of political news. Here are some of the Words of 2020:

Pandemic: Covid-19 turned from an epidemic to a pandemic. The last pandemic in the United States occurred back in 1918, so pandemics are fortunately not common occurrences. Pandemic went from a nonentity to one of the most uttered words of the past year.

Covid-19: Otherwise known as coronavirus, but a special one. Coronaviruses are common and have been around for a long time, but this dangerous one was named 19, after 2019, when it was discovered.

The Rona: A nickname for Covid-19.

Flattening the Curve:  Not a new diet, but the attempt to keep community spread of the disease down, so as not to overwhelm the healthcare system.

Social Distancing: One method of flattening the curve —  keeping at least 6 feet away from people. No hugging. No handshaking. And the first time we saw arrows in stores keeping aisles one way, and markers on the floor telling us where 6 feet apart was.

Quarantine: What you have to do if you are exposed to Covid-19. Keep to yourself for a couple of weeks. However, people called the whole experience of staying home for nearly a year now quarantining.

Pod/Bubble: The few people you always hang around with who are deemed “safe.” However, if any of those people stray at all from the bubble, like going to work or to the grocery store, then what?

Masks: Although in Japan, when people have a cold they wear a mask in public, we don’t do that here. Masks are for Halloween and for surgeons.  Now, masks are a fashion item. They can even be a political statement in what they say or even if you wear one at all.

PPE: Personal protective equipment. The masks, gowns, face shields, gloves that those who care for Covid patients wear. It has always been around, but we never talked about it….or about there being a shortage of it. 

Blursday: Not knowing what the hell day of the week it is since you don’t go anywhere anymore.

Ventilators: Who ever talked about ventilators before 2020? Ventilators were in short supply and not a good sign if a Covid patient needed one.

Hand sanitizer: It’s everywhere. Use it.

Toilet paper, Lysol spray, antiseptic wipes: Try to find these items! Just like panning for gold.

Curbside pickup: Did you ever pick up your groceries outside the grocery store — or have them delivered — before 2020? Be honest. Or your Chinese dinner from your favorite restaurant?.

Front-line workers: Those heroes who work directly with Covid patients.

Essential workers:  Not to be confused with front-line workers, essential workers are those who cannot work from home: grocery store workers, food service workers, police, etc.

Hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir, Regeneron: Medications used to treat Covid. One doesn’t work. The other two are reserved for presidents and their friends.

Doomscrolling: Endlessly scrolling through Twitter for more bad news.

Quarantini: Your alcoholic beverage of choice.

Quaranbeard: What you are left with if you don’t shave for 8 months.

Zoom: Don’t you wish you had bought stock in this one? Who ever heard of it before 2020? I personally live on it. There is so much to do now with virtual  events that I have had Zoom conflicts.

Zoombombing: When someone hacks into your zoom meeting with ugly things like white supremacism and pornography. It happened at an event I was at. Use a password if you have a Zoom event.

Zumping: Dumping someone on Zoom. How sad.

The Before Times: Remember back then, when you could go to TJ Maxx?

Covidiot: One who doesn’t believe Covid is real.

Here are some political words:

Rigged:  The election. Or not. 

Mail-in ballots: The preferred method of voting in a pandemic. Certain people felt it led to a rigged election.

Systemic Racism: Still woven throughout our society after all these years.

Blue Lives Matter: Slogan for supporting the police for which there is also a flag. As if we don’t all support the police.

Proud Boys: I haven’t figured out what they have to be proud about.

Antifa: Stands for anti-Fascism, so I don’t understand why that is a bad thing.

Defund: Claim made by one side that the other side wants to take funding away from law enforcement.

A few more 2020 words include Zoom fatigue, Zoom mom, vaccine, Kracken, peaceful transition of power, Amazon Prime, bingeing, Netflix, Amazon delivery.

 

Official Words of the Year

Dictionaries and language-oriented associations choose words of the year and words of the decade. I participated in a couple of webinars from Planet Word (check out its website; it is a new brick-and-mortar word museum in Washington DC. Recently opened, it is closed to the public because of Covid. They were sponsoring the WODY in coordination with the American Dialect Society, members of the New Word Committee. In the second webinar, we got to vote on and defend our choices for their Word of the Year categories. It was great fun for a wordie like me.  The American Dialect Society has been choosing Word of the Year for 30 years, since 1990. Here are some of their winners:

1993 – Like (the overused kind) – It was actually voted Most Likely to Succeed

1996 – Soccer mom

1999 – Y2K

2000 – Chad

2015 – The singular “they” – which was also the Word of the Decade

Here are some of the dictionaries’ Words of the Year for 2020:

• Webster – Pandemic
• Dictionary.com – Pandemic

Those were based on how frequently words are looked up.

• Collins Dictionary – Lockdown
• Cambridge Dictionary – Quarantine
• Oxford Dictionary – They could not pick just one word for the year.

AND…. here are the American Dialect Society’s Words of the Year, along with my votes.

Political Word of the Year  

My vote – dissent collar, which I defended by saying RBG was important enough to be credited this year. It came in second

Winner – Defund/abolish

Digital Word of the Year

My vote and the winner – Doomscrolling

Zoom-Related Word of the Year

My choice and the winner – “You’re muted.”

Other popular choice – oysgezoomt from the Yiddish, meaning bored by Zoom (oys-ga-zoomed, emphasis on the first syllable)

Coronavirus-Related Word of the Year

My choice – Covid-19

Winner – Social distancing

Slang/Informal Word of the Year

My choice and the winner – The Rona

Euphemism of the Year

My choices – Officer-involved shooting or essential workers

Winner – Essential workers, euphemistic because of the low pay involved

Emoji of the Year

My choices – The emoji wearing a face mask or the Facebook “care” emoji

Winner – Face with the medical mask

Most Creative Combining Form

My choice – Covid (covidiot, covid hair, etc.)

Winner – Quaran (quarantini, quaranbeard)

Most Useful Word of the Year

My choice – Blursday

Winner – Before times

Most Likely to Succeed

My choice and the winner – antiracism

Word of the Year

My choice and the winner – Covid  (How could it be anything else?)

Running a close second was simply the word “2020” with its implied meanings!

 

Credit to Planet Word and the American Dialect Society for this post! Check out their websites.

Happy New Year  & Thank You for Supporting Me Throughout 2020!