Global Language Monitor Announces That ‘Covid’ is the Top Word of 2020 (Top 50 #WOTY Ranked)
AUSTIN, Texas,
July 6, 2020 (Newswire.com)
Global Language Monitor (GLM), the data research company that documents, analyzes, and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, has announced that Covid is the Top Word of 2020 in its mid-year update.
“It’s no surprise that ‘covid’ has risen to the top of the rankings,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of GLM. “However, ‘covid’ has received the highest number of citations ever recorded in our global survey. In fact, ‘covid’ has outranked all previous Words of the Year in the 21st century by a factor of 100, or more.”
Covid is the commonly used shorthand for the shorthand for Covid-19. Covid-19 is the official name of the virus caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus, so named in WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
Covid-19 is ranked No. 2 on GLM’s mid-year update. The Top Ten Words of the Year (#WOTY) for 2020 include Covid, Covid-19, Coronavirus, Corona, Face mask, Progress, Truth, Social Distancing, Trade War, and Sustainability.
Top Words of the Year of 2020 (#WOTY2020) mid-year update follow (Rank, Word, Definition/Comment).
Please Note: Typically, the Global Language Monitor publishes the Top Twenty Words in its rankings. In this #WOTY2020 mid-year update, for the historical record, we are extending the published rankings to the Top Fifty.
| Global Language Monitor | ||
| Top Words of 2020 for Global English (Mid-year Update | ||
| Rank | Word | Definition |
| 1 | Covid | The shorthand for Covid-19 has the largest number of citations ever recorded in the 21st century. |
| 2 | Covid-19 | The name of the virus caused by the SARS CoV-2 by WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD). |
| 3 | Coronavirus | SARS-CoV-2 full name of virus that causes Covied-19. |
| 4 | Corona | From the Latin for ‘crown’. Compare the Sun’s corona during a total eclipse. |
| 5 | Face mask | A face covering that helps halt the spread of Covid-19 to varying degrees depending on the material and number of layers. |
| 6 | Progress | The belief that society moves ever towards betterment |
| 7 | Truth | The idea that there is an objective, discernible reality for humans to discover and cherish. |
| 8 | Social Distancing | The distance individuals should keep from each other to lessen risk of virus transmission, usually about 2 meters or six feet. |
| 9 | Trade War | Colossal struggle between US and China with worldwide repercussions. |
| 10 | Sustainability | Creating an environment that supplies certain needs without comprmising future production. |
| 11 | Flatten the Curve | The ability to manage the number of case so as to not overwhelm the hospital system. |
| 12 | Lockdown | Restricting movement outside home or district. |
| 13 | Identity Politics | Politics based on certain elements of one’s makeup, such as skin color or ethic background, or gender. |
| 14 | Progressives | The word ‘liberal’ outlived its usefulness as the description of one’s political leanings. |
| 15 | Zoom | Group meetings held over videoconferencing channels. |
| 16 | Quarantine | Restricting physical movements to one’s home or institution, often separated from all others. |
| 17 | Migrants | People moving from one nation to another. |
| 18 | Donald Trump | Donald J. Trump, the 46th president of the US. |
| 19 | Symptoms | Physical conditions that may signify the presence of a virus or illness. |
| 20 | Outbreak | The seemingly sudden appearance of a disease in a community or geographic location. |
| 21 | CDC | The Centers fo Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. |
| 22 | Conservatives | Political philosophy that favors saving the best from the past while moving toward the future. |
| 23 | Unemployment | Highest unemployment numbers the US has seen since the Great Recession — and possibly the Depression. |
| 24 | Climate Change | Climate change has ranked in the Top Ten for the last dozen years or so. |
| 25 | Hand Sanitizer | Washing one’s hands with an anti-bacterial soap for thirty seconds is a strong barrier against Covid-19. |
| 26 | White Privilege | Supposed advantages carried by Whites by virture of their ethnic heritage. |
| 27 | The Pandemic | Current global pandemic precipitated by SARS-CoV-2. |
| 28 | The Virus | Shorthand for Covid-19. |
| 29 | Work at Home | The result of social distancing guidelines where employees must stay separated from each other. |
| 30 | Stimulus | Massive $3 trillion+ funding effort by the US Federal Government to help keep families (and the economy) afloat. |
| 31 | George Floyd | George Floyd, a black American, was killed by a police officer kneeling on his neck for some eight minutes in Minneapolis. His death sparked global protests. |
| 32 | Black Lives Matter | A movement protesting police brutality against African-Americans. |
| 33 | Woke | The state of suddenly becoming aware of social injustices in the society. |
| 34 | Joe Biden | Presumptive presidential nominee of the Democrat Party against President Trump. |
| 35 | Wuhan | Largest city in Central China, capital of Hubei Province, population 11,000,000; original epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak. |
| 36 | WHO | WHO – World Health Organization was established in 1948 by the United Nations as the agency overseeing international public health. |
| 37 | Disinfectant | A chemical agent that kills bacteria. |
| 38 | New Normal | The new reality of the pandemic-ravaged world. |
| 38 | MAGA | Campaign slogan of President Trump in 2016. |
| 39 | Fake News | Packaged news, planted sources, one-sided exposes, party lines, and official narratives are a new phenomenon only to those with no sense of history. |
| 40 | Shelter-in-place | Being confined to one’s home or institution to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. |
| 41 | Nancy Pelosi | The Speaker of the House of Representatives; the highest ranked Democratic office holder. |
| 42 | Self Isolate | Quarantined for a minimum of 14 days after being exposed to Covid-19 to help stop the spread of the virus. |
| 43 | Dr. Anthony Fauci | Dr. Anthony Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases |
| 44 | “I Can’t Breathe” | The last words uttered by George Floyd as he lay dying at the hands of Minneapolis police. |
| 45 | Essential Workers | Those workers who perform ‘essential’ tasks during the coronavirus pandemic, most notably in healthcare, food production and distribution, and the service sector. |
| 46 | Wet Market | Outdoor markets that offer recently slaughtered meat, fish and poultry; sometimes including live animals. |
| 47 | Impeach Trump | The Trump impeachment effort ended with a vote of acquittal on February 5, 2020, just as the pandemic was taking off in the US, |
| 48 | Defund Police | A movement to re-focus police departments to social welfare duties. |
| 49 | Super Spreader | A single person or event that propagates ‘clusters’ of the outbreak. Some 20% of infected super spreaders could be responsible for 80% of viral transmission. |
| 50 | Dr. Deborah Birx | Dr. Deborah Birx is the Coronavirus Response Coordinator, White House Coronavirus Task Force. |
| The Global Language Monitor
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Typically, the Global Language Monitor ranks words, phrases, and names on three separate lists, and the lists are limited to 20 items. For this effort, GLM has combined the lists and extended the word count to 50 items.
Global Language Monitor began recording the Top Words of the Year in 2000 to document the history of the 21st Century through the English language, the world’s first truly global language. The words are culled throughout the English-speaking world, which as of January 2018 ranks more than 2.58 billion speakers. Global Language Monitor employs its NarrativeTracker technologies for global internet and social media analysis.
NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic, at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the internet, blogosphere, and the top 300,000 print and electronic global media as well as new social media sources as they emerge.
In addition, the Global Language Monitor has also tracked the Top Words, Phrases and Names of the 21st Century.
More information about these and the company can be found at Languagemonitor.com.
About Global Language Monitor
Based in Austin, Texas, the Global Language Monitor collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon the English language. The company is known for its Word of the Year, political analysis, college and university rankings, high-tech buzzwords, and media analytics. For more information, visit Languagemonitor.com.
Media Contact:
Paul JJ Payack
info@languagemonitor.com
pjjp@post.Harvard.edu
1 737.215.7750
Source: Global Language Monitor
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Categories: International News, General Interest
Tags: 2020, data research, Global Language Monitor, language, Top Words of the Year, trending, trends, WOTY2020
