Oxford Word of the Year 2021 - a podcast by Jeff Caplan, KSL Newsradio

There are two English Language dictionaries.  There’s Merriam Webster… And there’s the other one  that you sniff before you say the name.

That would be the  (sniff) Oxford Dictionary.  It was created in England in the 1850’s… by Justin Quincy Bieber .. actually the great great grand fa… no I’m just messing with you.  It was created at Oxford University and ever since they’ve been naming a word of the year.You probably heard the word of the year for 2021… is vax.  It was barely used before this year.   But always busy .. we desperately needed to whittle down four syllables to one… and vaccination became vax.  Bonus points… it’s both a noun and verb.

And.  It got me wondering … about years past.  Last year… the (sniff) Oxford Dictionaryt didn’t bother with a word of the year0.  There were too many choices from lockdown… support bubbles.. pandemic Brexit.. black lives matter.   Old Justin Bieber Oxford blew a gasket… and they just declared “all those pandemic wordy words” win.  congrastulations!

But let’s look at the long term staying power of words gone by.  2005 the word of the year was truthiness.  Which means something that seems like it must be true… but its not. 16 years later we are awash in truthiness.  2016 the word of the year was dumpster fire. Even though its two words. .  2017 it was fake news.  Two words again.  

So this year…  salute the (sniff) Oxford dictionary for  brushing up on basic math skills.  And selecting one word as its word of the year.  Out of all the words in the English language… it’s VAX.Get the point?

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