Main image via The Jakarta Post
More than anything, the few words we’ve been hearing throughout the year are “COVID-19”, “pandemic”, “stay-home” “sanitizer” and “rules”. So it’s only fair that one of these words is chosen to be the word of the year.
And so it has! Two dictionary companies have selected “pandemic” to be the word of the year at the same time.
Oxford Languages, another company that could not settle on just one word said that the year has brought a large change in the use of language and publication updates. Hence, they cannot be “accommodated in one single ‘word of the year’”.
via GIPHY
However, choosing “pandemic” isn’t a big shock. Senior research editor at Dictionary.com said that the search on the site for “pandemic” shot to over 13,500% on March 11, the day the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spread of coronavirus to be a global health emergency.
Even after months, the lookups for that word remained 1,000% higher than usual, so much so it was in the top 10% of all word searches on the site for about half a year.
via GIPHY
Merriam-Webster.com reported 115,806% searches on March 11 for the word “pandemic”. Its editor explained that people may not only search for its meaning but also to hunt for more detail, or for inspiration or comfort in the knowing.
Apart from the “pandemic”, if you had to choose one word to describe your 2020, what would it be?
By: Piravina Ragunathan
Info via Astro Awani
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