Words of the year for 2020 – or through history – no surprise

You know how the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes all pick the best movies of the year? Well, a variety of different organizations also pick the word of the year.

In 2020, the choice was simple. While organizations didn't all pick the same word – more on that in a moment – they all picked words centered around the same theme: COVID-19.

Merriam-Webster, considered the gold standard of dictionaries by those of us old enough to remember owning a dictionary as a book, picked pandemic. That was based on a statistical analysis of words looked up in the company's on-line dictionary.

Dictionary.com, considered the gold standard of dictionaries by those who think only old people would remember owning a print edition of a dictionary, reached the same conclusion: Pandemic was the word of the year. Curiously, Dictionary.com asked readers to vote on the word of the year after announcing that pandemic was chosen. Readers selected unprecedented, which was the first time something like that happened (Does anyone know a term that means "the first time something like that happened?").

Oxford Dictionary, considered the gold standard of dictionaries by those compete in rowing for prestigious British universities, didn't settle on one word, but picked 47. That's right, 47 words of the year. Pandemic and the conspiracy-fueled plandemic both made the list, as did a bunch of other COVID-19-related words, some of which I'd never heard: Blursday, Zoombombing, Workation.

Collins Dictionary, considered the gold standard of dictionaries by people whose last name is Collins, chose lockdown as its word of the year.

The word of the year is often obvious. In 2000, it was chad, (referring either to the "hanging chads" in Florida that clouded the 2000 presidential election results or to my oldest son, who turned 10 that year). In 2016, the word of the year was surreal, because a lot of stuff happened in 2016 (some of which was reversed in 2020).

Remember 1952, when Queen Elizabeth rose to the crown in England? The phrase future Netflix miniseries was that year's choice.

Go back to 1903, when the Wright Brothers were the first to fly an airplane. That year, the phrase of the year was overhead bin.

Remember 1789, the year that the Constitution was ratified by Congress? Unsurprisingly, the phrase of that year was Hamilton tickets, although people didn't know why it was so important.

In 1347, when the Black Plague hit Europe and began and killed 30% to 60% of Europeans? No surprise, plandemic was one of two words of that year, as was misery (to be fair, misery was the word of the year for every year from 700 through 1700).

In 480 BC, when Athens was in what's popularly known as "The Golden Age of Athenian Democracy," the word of the year was Opa! (Strange, because I've always believed that "Grease" is the word.)

Going back to 42,000 BC, the word of the year wasn't printed , but was a cave painting of a stick figure lurking in the background of a painting of a buffalo. Scientists identified the word of the year from that year as cavedrawingbombing.

Let's hope that 2021 brings a more hopeful word of the year. Maybe recovery. Or healthy. Maybe unity.

Heck, I'd be content with Hamilton tickets, Opa! or even overhead bin.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.