New words… old words… which would you rather not hear again?

CLIMATE emergency is needed for the future of permaculture and freegans who lived in a hothouse during the hellacious lockdown. Have you understood any of it? If not, don´t worry, read the article to figure it out.

Words, what would we do without them? We would probably still be drawing cuneiforms and hieroglyphs. But luckily, we now have alphabets and a whole range of words to use on any occasion. Each year The Oxford English Dictionary gets bigger and bigger as more words are added to it.

You would probably think there´s no more need for other words, but people are constantly coming up with different words that become a trend. Take for example, selfie. Some other words are old but have become more popular in recent years, because of a change in culture or a big event (like 2020).

No matter the origin, every year hundreds of new words are added to the dictionary to reflect the evolution of the English language.

In January, the Oxford English Dictionary presented their top 5 words from 2019. They are climate emergency (Word of the year), permaculture, freegan, hothouse and hellacious. Interesting words, but what do they actually mean?

Climate emergency has been on everyone’s tongues and still continues to be. It is defined as a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change.  We are all concerned about climate change and try to take action to reduce it.

But do you know what permaculture is? It is based around the concept of sustainable farming and gardening. Freegans are people who rely on food found in supermarket dumpsters and they probably don’t live in hothouses (places that encourage rapid development of ideas) or maybe they do!?!

Hellacious describes an awful experience and it is often used to describe traffic, weather or even a period of time. Well, it has been a hellacious year so far!

But since January, many things have happened worldwide and new words emerged. After being bombarded with Brexit, hard borders and backstop from every news channel, out of nowhere came coronavirus, COVID-19, lockdown and furlough. They were followed by pandemic, case fatality rate, asymptomatic, clinical trial and contact tracing, to name just a few.  These words have invaded our vocabulary like an army of angry soldiers and don´t seem to want to leave.

What happened with exuberant, cheerful, merry, or euphoric? Have we suddenly forgotten all about them?

This hellacious year better change gear and become more cheerful towards the end as we had enough of coronavirus pandemic. What are the words you´d rather forget or not hear again related to this year´s event?