15 words and phrases that defined 2020

When the pandemic and lockdown first started, people tended to fall into one of two categories: those who were adjusting to working from home and the rest of their responsibilities, and those who (for whatever reason) found themselves bored and with a lot of extra time on their hands. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, it seemed like the ideal time to tackle the cleaning, organising, and other home improvement projects we’ve been putting off (sometimes for years). This is now referred to as ‘quarancleaning.’ Up until 2020, when most people thought of a quarantine, it was usually in a historical context, like isolating people who had the plague, tuberculosis, or Hansen’s disease (formerly known as leprosy) from the rest of the population. Now, the word ‘quarantine’ is applied much more loosely, incorporating everything from self-isolating when you’re sick, to referencing all the time you’ve been spending at home over the past seven months.

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No, a ‘superspreader’ is not someone who is particularly talented at making peanut butter sandwiches (unfortunately). According to Stollznow, “a ‘superspreader’ is an event or individual to which outbreaks of COVID-19 can be traced.” Examples include college parties, conferences, religious gatherings, and political events. “Looking at this through a modern lens, Typhoid Mary could be considered a ‘superspreader’ of her day,” Stollznow explains. Terms like ‘superspreader’ define 2020 because of their connection to the novel coronavirus. “In these times of the pandemic – the major theme of this year – our health, safety, and very survival rely upon being able to talk about these concepts,” she adds. “As a society, these terms represent our considerations, concerns, and fears.” Ideally, if/when we make it past the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll be more aware of our ability to spread other infectious diseases to others.

Along with ‘Karen,’ calling someone a ‘covidiot’ is one of the most prominent insults of 2020. A combination of ‘COVID’ and ‘idiot,’ a ‘covidiot’ is a person who ignores public health advice related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though public health is now a more prominent part of our collective consciousness than any previous point in our lifetime, the concept isn’t clicking with everyone. The idea of potentially limiting our own freedom and autonomy – in the form of wearing uncomfortable masks and giving up many aspects of our social lives for several months – for the good of our fellow humans, isn’t something that those considered ‘covidiots’ are taking seriously. Early on, the term was also used to describe the people hoarding toilet paper, hand sanitiser, and cleaning supplies creating shortages for everyone else.

This has been the year of everything ‘going virtual.’ From doctor’s appointments to meetings with attorneys and accountants to real estate viewings, things we’d always have to do in-person have now moved online. And while there were several video conferencing services used before the pandemic, one rose to the top: Zoom. ‘Zoom’ is an example of a brand – like Xerox and Hoover – that not only replaces the actual term for something (in this case, video conferencing), but has become so ubiquitous that it has achieved verb status. In other words, you can attend a meeting via Zoom, or you could set up a time to Zoom with your aunt.

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Even though most of us don’t have formal public health training, we have been getting more familiar with the discipline’s lingo in 2020. This includes the term ‘flatten the curve,’ which refers to slowing the spread of an illness causing a pandemic so as not to overwhelm the hospital system. According to Global Language Monitor, a data research company that documents, analyses, and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, ‘flatten the curve’ ranked eleventh on their list of the top English words of 2020. When talking about flattening the curve, public health officials and politicians usually broke out a graph showing the rise in cases in a particular area, alongside its hospital capacity. The idea behind flattening the curve is to keep the infection rate slow and steady, rather than a steep incline where everyone gets sick at the same time, and there aren’t enough hospital beds, staff, or resources to care for everyone at once.

In addition to mental and emotional health, we’ve been hearing a lot about ‘resilience’ in 2020. In short, resilience describes our ability to bounce back, cope with adversity, and endure during difficult situations, Burke-Garcia explains. “People across the world are experiencing something that many have not had to live through in their lifetimes,” she says. “The onset of the pandemic has brought people’s ability to be resilient into focus. According to [data from] How Right Now, people need to ensure their basic needs are met (food and housing security), social interaction and support, and online mental health support in order for them to be resilient amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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Source: RD.com