Collins declares word of the year: ‘Lockdown’

Can a single word sum up a year? Collins Dictionary has declared that “lockdown” is the most significant word of 2020 – beating ”TikToker”, “Megxit“, “mukbang” and “BLM” to top the rankings. The city of Brussels was on high alert. The authorities believed that a terrorist attack could be imminent: a series of horrifying events had just taken place in Paris, and one of the perpetrators was known to be Belgian. For four days, shops and schools were closed and public transport came to a halt. One newspaper described the city as having “an atmosphere of war”. It was in lockdown. That was five years ago. Back then, “lockdown” was a little-used word. It started as a prison term for convicts being confined to their cells after a disturbance; later it became applied to security situations in which people were warned to keep out of the firing line. No one imagined it becoming part of our everyday vocabulary. But yesterday Collins Dictionary announced it as the Word of the Year. It was chosen “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”. The lexicographers had found more than 250,000 usages of it, up from just 4,000 the year before. Their definition was: “The imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction and access to public spaces.” The British government has been criticised for using military terminology in discussing the virus, such as “waging war” – and arguably “lockdown” is part of that. It could just as well have been called a “shutdown”, which sounds much less alarming. But there is no question that “lockdown” has caught on. Words relating to the pandemic dominated Collins’s shortlist: “coronavirus”, “furlough”, “key worker”, “social distance” and “self-isolate” were all in the top 10. The others were “BLM”, and on a lighter note “Megxit”, “TikToker” and “mukbang”. Last year, according to the lexicographers, climate change was people’s main concern. While Collins selected “climate strike” as its winning word(s), its rival the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) chose “climate emergency”. Their 2018 choices also reflected anxiety about the environment: Collins went for “single-use” and the OED for “toxic”. The two, however, are not always in sync. Collins’s choice for 2017, “fake news”, was an echo of the OED’s 2016 winner, “post-truth”. Political and economic terms have often come out on top – for example, “Brexit”, “big society” and “credit crunch”. But so have words related to leisure activities, such as “selfie”, “vape” and “Sudoku”. And sometimes TV catchphrases come to the fore – “bovvered” among them. As “lockdown” shows, these words are not always new: some have been around for a long time, but suddenly taken on a new significance. And whereas most “of the year” awards reflect outstanding merit, these ones are simply based on frequency of use. Some winners, like “selfie”, could be considered hopelessly unimaginative. Can a single word sum up a year? Word immunity? Some say, no. Most of these words stem from a single notable event, and every year has more than one of those: 2020 will be remembered for the furore surrounding the US elections as well as the pandemic. Equally, events seldom adhere to a calendar year: “credit crunch” was the OED’s top word for 2008, but it reflected an economic crisis which began in 2007 and lasted for several years. Others argue that, whatever happens in the course of a year, there is always one thing that captures the public imagination more than anything else. As the Collins lexicographers point out, lockdown is something we have all had to go through, and unlike anything else we have experienced. Not only that, but it has ruled out all sorts of other things that might have made 2020 memorable. KeywordsPerpetrators - People who carried out harmful, illegal, or immoral acts.