803 - Pandemic, COVID, anderhalvemetersamenleving: 2020 Words of the Year

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's the Oscars of the language world: word-of-the-year data analysis and voting! A spirited conversation with Merriam-Webster's Emily Brewster about the 2020 words of the year. Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Grammar Pop iOS game. Peeve Wars card game. Grammar Girl books. HOST: Mignon Fogarty VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. Links: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe http://twitter.com/grammargirl http://facebook.com/grammargirl http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm a young Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.
0:10.6	We talk about writing, history, rules and cool stuff.
0:13.6	And today I have a very special guest for the end of the year.
0:17.4	I have Emily Brewster, a lexicographer at Merriam Webster and co-host of the new podcast
0:23.6	Word Matters.
0:24.6	Hi, Emily.
0:25.6	Thank you for being here today.
0:26.6	Hi, Mignon.
0:27.6	Thanks for having me.
0:29.7	I have a bet.
0:30.7	Well, it's sort of a ward season for words last night.
0:34.2	Recently, Ben Zimmer referred to words of the year as the Oscars for words.
0:39.9	And so I'm just excited to have you here to talk about how these words get chosen.
0:46.4	So can you talk about Merriam Webster in particular?
0:50.8	How the dictionary chooses, well, it's really the editors of the dictionary, choose the
0:56.2	word of the year.
1:00.2	Usually in the office, I'm sure you weren't in the office this year, but the environment
1:05.7	under which the word gets chosen.
1:08.6	Yes.
1:09.6	Our process is, I think, a little different than some others.
1:13.7	I don't actually think of our word of the year as being chosen, so much as being identified
1:19.1	because it's really based on data.
	...

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