Lockdown declared word of 2020 by Collins Dictionary

London, November 10

Lockdown, the containment measure applied by governments all over the world to mitigate the unfold of COVID-19, has been named the Collins Word of the Year 2020.

According to the dictionary, lockdown is outlined as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”.

“Our lexicographers chose lockdown as Word of the Year because it is a unifying experience for billions of people across the world, who have had, collectively, to play their part in combating the spread of COVID-19,” Collins mentioned.

“Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” mentioned Helen Newstead, language content material marketing consultant at Collins.

“Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. With many countries entering a second lockdown, it is not a word of the year to celebrate but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world,” she mentioned.

The dictionary mentioned it registered over 1 / 4 of one million usages of the phrase lockdown throughout 2020, in opposition to solely 4,000 the earlier 12 months.

Several different phrases associated to the pandemic are included in Collins’ lengthy checklist of the highest 10 phrases of the 12 months, which embody furlough or the momentary laying-off of staff, normally as a result of there isn’t ample work to make use of them, and self-isolate, or to quarantine oneself if one has or suspects contagious illness.

The phrase coronavirus is there too, with a rare 35,000-fold improve in use year-on-year, and outlined as any of the group of viruses that trigger infectious diseases of the respiratory tract, together with Covid-19. But the social impacts – the adjustments to behavior and the human lifestyle – dominate the checklist for the 12 months.

“The restrictions placed on how we move about and interact with one another arguably had the most impact. And they’re represented first and foremost by social distancing, a concept now so pervasive that it has also entered the language as a verb ‘to socially distance’,” Collins notes.

However, the dictionary factors out that 2020 was not all concerning the pandemic.

Megxit, or Prince Harry and spouse Meghan Meghan’s resolution to face down as senior members of the UK royal household, was amongst a number of the different prime phrases of the 12 months.

BLM or Black Lives Matter, the large world anti-racism motion, was one of many different key phrases. And, on a lighter be aware, there’s the phrase “mukbang” all the way in which from Korea, which implies a video or webcast through which the host noisily eats a big amount of meals for the leisure of viewers. — PTI