Oxford Dictionary stumped for word of year

For the first time, the Oxford English Dictionary has been unable to name its word of the year as 2020 had too many words to just name one.

Words such as “Black Lives Matter”, “Karen”, “pandemic” and “coronavirus” shaped the English language this year.

The Oxford English Dictionary instead looked at how the English language evolved during the “unprecedented” year, describing 2020 as “a year which cannot be neatly accommodated in one single word”.

For the past 10 years, Oxford has selected a word or expression that captured the mood and ethos of the year, which was driven by data showing the ways in which the words were used.

“But this year, how could we pick a word, or even a shortlist, to summarise the ways in which we’ve been continually knocked off our axis?” said president of Oxford Dictionaries, Casper Grathwohl.

“Instead, we released a comprehensive report entitled Words of an Unprecedented Year, which tracks some of the new words and most significant language trends to have emerged across a truly unique year.”

By March, “coronavirus” was one of the frequently used nouns in the English language.

“The report shows how Covid-19 spread across the world, not just epidemiologically but through our language, becoming one of the most used nouns of the year, despite only being coined in February,” said Grathwohl.

“Pandemic” was a word rarely used before this year as epidemic was most used.

This all changed on 11 March this year when the World Health Organisation characterised Covid-19 as a pandemic. Since then, “pandemic’” has become one of the most significant words of the year as the frequency of the word increased by over 57 000% since last year.

The report “marks the moment in which the term ‘Black Lives Matter’ surged back into our collective consciousness and ‘Karens’ made a name for themselves, while the use of ‘systemic racism’ increased by 1 623% compared to last year”, Grathwohl said.

January saw the use of the word “bushfire” following the damaging fi res in Australia, as well as “impeachment” due to the proposed removal of US President Donald Trump.

“And that story paints a picture. Imagine a historian in 50 years’ time – to understand what 2020 was about they would need to look no further than our language. They would see ‘coronavirus’ replace ‘time’ as the most commonly used noun in the English language. They would see ‘social distancing’ become the norm and the hope of ‘reopening’,” Grathwohl said.