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This past year has brought a new reality to everyone, worldwide. There’s one common thing that united us all, and that was “lockdown”. The BBC reports that this is the word of 2020, as defined by the Collins dictionary. What other words marked 2020 and what were some things language professionals had to do to adapt to changing times and linguistic needs? The word lockdown had a 62% increase in usage from 2019 to 2020 up to 250,000 times - so many of us could never have fathomed that this would happen to us. It united us, for better or for worse, and still continues to have an impact, as new lockdowns are reinstated in some countries, like in Germany where I presently live.
- According to Collins, a lockdown signifies “the containment measure implemented by governments around the world to mitigate the spread of
- COVID-19.”
- What were the other most used words in 2020?
- Coronavirus
- BLM (Black Lives Matter)
- Key worker
- Furlough
- Self-isolate
- Social distancing
- MEGXit
- TikToker
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