Pandemic, The Word That Most Representatives Of 2020 Dictionary.com Version

JAKARTA - There is no end to discussing COVID-19 throughout 2020. Since the pandemic swept across the world in March, people have started to find out everything related to the corona virus.

This year, Dictionary.com announced the word pandemic or pandemic as the 2020 Word of the Year. The word continues to adorn various online and television news reports and is widely discussed by the public.

As many as 60 million cases of COVID-19 occur and it continues to increase every day. The impact has hit all sectors, from the economy to entertainment.

The pandemic has also had an effect on a number of important events taking place this year. Starting from the Black Lives Matter movement to the election of the President of the United States.

"The word pandemic has been reflected in our language. On March 11, the WHO organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the first of which was caused by a coronavirus. Pandemic is not a word to be used carelessly, ”said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom.

Each year, Dictionary.com announces one word designated as meaningful and is chosen to summarize all the events of the year. The word chosen has an effect and is not popular in a short time.

In 2019, the word Existential or existence became the Dictionary.com version of the Word of the Year. This word is taken from the character Forky in the animated film Toy Story 4.

Forky is a toy doll made from recycled items such as forks, fake toy eyes, and leftover flannel. Because it is different from other toys, Forky often refers to himself as trash.

'I'm trash! "(I'm just trash), that's how Forky's words throughout the Toy Story 4 film rolled.

Dictionary.com considers the word Existential and Forky's questions about its existence to be a reflection for society throughout 2019.

According to Dictionary.com, the new COVID-19 actually hit more than four thousand people worldwide in March. The term pandemic, which was recently inaugurated by WHO, began to be searched for by internet users so that total searches skyrocketed to 13.575 percent compared to 2019.

2020 has been, well, a lot ... and so is the # WordOfTheYear2020. https://t.co/g928wHdtdU

- Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) November 30, 2020

"In early 2020, it would never have been imagined that parents would have a conversation about the word pandemic - a word thought to come from a history book - to their children at the dinner table. Unexpectedly, the word pandemic became part of the topic every day," write Dictionary.com's official statement

The word pandemic comes from the Greek, pân which means all and dêmos which means people. Pandemic means affecting everyone and all aspects of our lives.

The news about COVID-19 that continues to fill the news has made the public start to know new terms about COVID-19 such as asymptomatic (asymptomatic), coronavirus (corona virus), quarantine (quarantine), sanitizers (cleaners) and many others.

People also show their creativity to create new terms. The Dictionary.com team found that many people abbreviated the word corona to hue and quarantine to quar as a play on words.

Many new terms have been heard since the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to some of the words mentioned in the previous paragraph, there is Zoom, which is a video calling application and is the name for those who have face-to-face interactions. There have also been many new terms related to Zoom being launched, one of which is Zoom fatigue which is defined as a pain from having to communicate a lot using a gadget screen.

There is also the word coronababy (corona baby) which means a baby born in the middle of a pandemic. Covidiot is a nickname for people who do not follow health protocols with the characteristics of not washing their hands, standing less than a meter away, and hoarding items such as hand sanitizer and toilet paper for themselves.

Although they are not officially included in the Dictionary.com dictionary, the use of these words can be found on social media every day.

There is also the term maskne or mask acne (mask acne), namely acne or other skin irritations caused by wearing a mask. People are required to use masks at all times, but not everyone is suitable to use them for a long time.

Not only Word of the Year, Dictionary.com also monitors word searches that people do every month. In January and February, the words pettifogging and acquit were trending because they were related to Donald Trump's impeachment trial.

Then, from March to December, the words that occupy trending are related to the COVID-19 pandemic such as quarantine, social distancing, conspiracy theory, Karen, doomscrolling, superspreader, and authentic.