For the first time, the Oxford English Dictionary has chosen not to name a word of the year, saying that there were too many words to sum up the events of 2020....
For the first time, the Oxford English Dictionary has chosen not to name a word of the year, saying that there were too many words to sum up the events of 2020.
"Coronavirus" was one of the most frequently used nouns in the English language by March. "Pandemic” has seen usage increase by more than 57,000% this year, with “circuit breaker”, “lockdown”, “bubbles”, “face masks” and “key workers" not far behind.
The revolution in working habits has also affected language, with both “remote” and “remotely” seeing more than 300% growth in use.
Other news events have also been reflected in language. Use of “Black Lives Matter” has surged, and the phrase “conspiracy theory”has almost doubled in usage between October 2019 and October 2020. Use of “Brexit”, however, has dropped by 80% this year.
Previous choices for word of the year from Oxford have included “climate emergency” and “post truth”. Rival dictionary Collins chose “lockdown” for its word of the year earlier this month.
Kakapo can’t fly and it hides during the day but a critically endangered large parrot is back in the limelight having been named New Zealand’s bird of the year for an unprecedented second time.
Thanks to conservation efforts, the kakapo population has risen from 50 during the 1990s to 213.
The things that make k k p unique also make them vulnerable to threats. They are slow breeders; they nest on the ground and their main defence is to imitate a shrub.
Those qualities worked great in the island of birds the kakapo evolved in but they don’t fool introduced predators like stoats, rats and cats.
