Terminology -WOTTIES (2) - Collins Dictionary 2020 shortlisted Words Of The Year

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Collins Dictionary shortlisted Words Of The Year (i.e., the runner-up WOTTIES) are no less interesting than the Word Of The Year, winner of them all. This year’s shortlist is predictably reflective of the COVID-19 pandemic, with selected terms such as coronavirus, keyworker, furlough, and self-isolate. 

However, the Collins shortlisted 2020 WOTTIES also capture other key events that punctuated the year 2020. Events, such as those sparked by one too many horrifying police injustices, resulting in spontaneous social upheaval in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM). The shortlist also includes the unprecedented popularity of TikTocking doctors, reaching out to hundreds of thousands of teenagers with one-minute sex-education tips, also seen, dancing off the stress of 24-hour shifts at overcrowded, understaffed, and under-equipped, Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Even the neologism MeGxit, mapped on Brexit, referring to an unusual defection from the inner circles of the British Crown, was shortlisted.

Below, the Collins definitions for the 2020 WOTTIES shortlisted, together with the fabulously animated GIFs for BLM (Black Lives Matter), and for coronavirus (above), both directly imported from the Collins website.

• BLM abbreviation for Black Lives Matter: a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression.  
  
• coronavirus: (noun) any group of viruses that cause infectious illnesses of the respiratory tract, including COVID-19.
• keyworker: (noun) an employee in a profession considered essential to the functioning society.
• furlough: (noun) a temporary laying-off of employees, usually because there is insufficient work to occupy them.
• social distancing: (noun) maintaining a certain distance between onself and other people in order to prevent infection with a disease.
• Tiktoker: (noun) a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok®.
• self-isolate: (verb) to quarantine oneself if one has or suspects one has a contagious disease.
• mukbang: (noun) a video or webcast in which the host eats a large quantity of food for the entertainment of viewers.
• MEGxit: (noun) the withdrawal of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from royal duties.

Reference

Collins 2020 Word of the Year:  Shortlisted words - https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty