Funny you should say that!

But occasionally, a word or expression will transcend mere fashion and preference and have character, a zeitgeist for the year we are in. Enter the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the world’s most authoritative English language dictionary, and its choice of the word of the year.

The OED has been choosing an annual word since 2004. It was “chav” for 2004 all the way to “rizz” for 2023. Bizarrely, there was no OED chosen word for 2020. If it was left to me, I might have chosen “cover up” for that time of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be appropriate for the masses of people who covered up with face masks, through pharmaceutical companies that may have covered up vaccine trials that went awry, and right up to authorities that may have covered up the pandemic’s origin, intensity, mortality rates, etc. Some of the OED’s annual chosen words are abbreviated English words for all sorts of fancy stuff; some sound like they are the jargon of outlaws, despots, and bullies; and some even appear to be a deliberate act against seriousness! Whatever they are, these words plumb our idea of ourselves and come to us with a wealth of puns and fun.