Word of the Year 2021
Obviously the bulk of the new words this year were to do with COVID-19. Some were medical words like breakthrough infection and COVID pill and dexamethasone. We worked through some more of the Greek alphabet, progressing from the Delta variant to the Omicron variant. Increasingly I am hearing [omni-kron] as the pronunciation for this, influenced by the common prefix omni-. Omi, on the other hand appears only as an ancient clan title in Japan or in North American German communities as a form of address to a grandmother.
Some were jokey words related to our reactions to COVID. As far as I can see, lawn porn is still an obsession and I am quite certain that we consumed a lot of locktails. Porch pirates could be regarded as a COVID-related phenomenon in that the pandemic generally and lockdown in particular meant that we had a lot more parcels delivered to our homes. There were some out-and-out colloquialisms like Locky D for lockdown and put on the hard pants meaning ‘to knuckle down to doing something not to our liking’, like dressing up in uncomfortable clothes as we returned to the office.
Politics played its part in the transition from COVID zero to living with COVID. The switch from the rollout of the vaccines to the strollout was particularly Australian.
But other things have happened. We still occasionally think about our concerns about the environment so we have considered blue carbon and the cool roof and the wearing of trashion. Australia, to our shame, has been labelled a climate laggard.
Our preoccupation with health and beauty has not waned either so the possibility of fat freezing to avoid the more invasive liposuction was a pleasing development. Pity it is such a gamble! We took up cow hugging to lower our stress levels and achieve a bovine heart rate. The most interesting trend was towards being sober curious, that is, finding out what life is like when you don’t drink alcohol.
Collquialisms are unstoppable. Notable ones this year were cheugy and the ick, with the popo and champagne problem getting an honourable mention. The hiss puppy was cute.
On a positive note it was the year we discovered that there was once an Australotitan roaming this particular bit of the earth. It was described as the equivalent in size of 1,400 red kangaroos, a very Australian way of putting it.
While strollout and porch pirate have garnered support, and deservedly so, I am going to give Word of the Year to the yarning circle. I think this is an interesting example of crossover from Indigenous to white culture with beneficial effect. There should be more of it.
P.S. You can check out any words you don’t know under New Words.
P.P.S This is the final blog for this year. Happy Christmas everyone.