By the end of last year we got use to chalking things up to 2020 as it became its own entity filled with the whirlwind of ups and downs that made it the perfect superstorm. With all the lifestyle changes we've made and calls for social justice and reform we're seeing a lot of 2020 pour into this year towards progress and growth. On that note Dictionary.com has made a HUGE amount of changes to their take on the English language, some of which include words that only became popular or even used for that matter, because of the Pandemic. These changes also include things like no longer categorizing the world slave as a noun replacing it with enslaved to reflect the action and removing its association with the people. They have even changed the word Indigenous to be capitalized when referring to people. These changes reflect their stance on the importance of language and its power when discussing identity and culture.
In addition to over 7000 changes they have made to entries already in place in their dictionary, they have also added about 600 new words that speak to progress in the social justice space, cultural identity and inclusion as well as terms that specifically relate to the LGBTQ community. Some of these additions are BIPOC, overpolice and antiracism. They have officially added words like Finna and Chile to the dictionary- both of which when used sometimes sound like running your fingers down the chalkboard and no matter what Dictionary.com says - your aunt, grandma or BFF will still correct you if use them.
Now that we're living in this semi post-Covid world they've added words like Zoom, which now is synonymous with all video chatting and connectivity when physical contact is a no go. They have also added telework, superspreader, hybrid learning and unmute to their list of Covid additions Hopefully this will encourage more people to actually remember to hit mic that button and not force the rest of us on the zoom to read their lips or say 'nope, still can't hear you!'