Since 2006, I've proclaimed UK>US and US>UK Words of the Year and if I have anything to do with it, I will do so for 2020 too. You have to be careful about making plans in 2020, but at least these plans are in the internet and not in closed public spaces. I will declare my 2020 WotYs on 19 December.
I usually wait till after Christmas to do this, but this year is (if you haven't noticed!) different, and one of the differences is that Atlas Obscura has/have asked me to work with them in creating an online linguistic event. They're usually a company that takes people out around the world to experience things, but, as you can imagine, they've had to find other ways to connect (with) people this year.
But before I say more about that, let's do the important business of opening nominations for the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year! As ever, the categories are:
- UK-to-US import
- US-to-UK import
And as ever, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year.
- Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
- When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. Past space-ful WotYs have included gap year, Black Friday, and go missing.
Please nominate WotYs in comments to this blog post, where it'll be easier for me to keep track of them than if they show up on different social platforms. To see more past winners, click here.
There is a clear (orig. AmE) front-runner at the moment for the US>UK WotY (which I'm sure some of you will nominate!), but I am less certain about UK>US (and anything could change in the next couple of weeks). So please let me know your thoughts!
And now a bit more about the Atlas Obscura event. The 19 December timing is so that we can have something of a post-mortem (<much more common in BrE) on the various English words of the year, including the dictionary ones (mostly announced now) and the American Dialect Society's (to be announced). We'll also be looking at Words of the Year from other parts of the world, within particular industries, and so forth. I'll use those words as a springboard for looking at how the experience of 2020 differed and similar-ed (<now there's a word we need) for different people and also for looking at the history and processes of Word-of-the-Yearing.
I'll do some talking and presenting, but the event will also be interactive. We'll have some (orig. AmE in this sense) quizzing and opportunity for people to put forward their own words of the year.
So to sum up, your missions, should you choose to accept them, are:
- Nominate transatlantic words for 2020 in the comments.
- Book in for the Atlas Obscura event
- Share that link to people you think should know about it. You could get a whole bunch of your friends to come and you could gang up on me and tell me all my WotYs have always been wrong.
- And if you haven't already given The Prodigal Tongue to every anglo-/amero- -phile/-phobe and language lover you know, please consider doing so!
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