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Without a doubt: the word of the year in 2020 is a pandemic. That means two of the largest dictionary services in the world.
The corona pandemic has turned the world upside down. The Karl Johans door, decorated with Christmas decorations, is much emptier than it would have been otherwise. Photo: Fredrik Hagen / NTB
For the first time, the dictionary companies Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com have agreed on the word of the year. Pandemic is the word that perhaps more than anything else describes 2020.
However, the Oxford English Dictionary was unable to choose a single word. Instead, the well-known dictionary has published a 16-page report. Also that of the spirit of the crown. Oxford notes that the old specialized concepts have now become commonplace in everyday speech.
– Near real time, lexicographers have had the opportunity to track and analyze huge changes in language and rapid growth of new concepts. 2020 is a year in which we cannot choose a single “word of the year”, they emphasize.
Peter Sokolowski, editor of the Merriam Webster dictionary, says the pandemic may not be a surprising choice.
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– Often times, big news has a technical word associated with it. In this case, the word pandemic is not just technical, it has become widespread. That’s probably the word we’ll use when we talk about this period in the future, says Sokolowski.
Dictionary.com’s John Kelly says the number of searches for the word pandemic increased by 13,500 percent on March 11. It was the day the World Health Organization declared the corona situation to be just a pandemic.
– The increase was huge. Even more telling is how high the number of searches has been over the year, Kelly says.
Pandemic is a word with Greek roots. A combination of bread, for everyone, and demos, for the people. The word pandemic itself was first used in the mid-17th century.
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