In a year dominated by COVID-19, the Australian National Dictionary Centre has chosenย isoย asย itsย Word of the Year from a very long list of pandemic-related terms.
Iso is defined as: self-isolation; the act of remaining apart from othersย as a way toย limit the spread of an infectious disease, especially as a public health measure.ย ย
Each year the Centre, based at The Australian National University (ANU), picks a word or expression that has gained prominence in the Australian social landscape.
Senior Researcher Mark Gwynn says that among the hundreds of pandemic-related terms collected by the Centre, iso stood out as a characteristically Aussie abbreviation.
โOur fondness for abbreviating words in Australia, and a natural human inclination to make the unknown and scary familiar, quickly saw the descriptive term โself-isolationโ shortened to iso in March this year,โ Mr Gwynn said.
โNot only is iso distinctively Australian in usage, it has also been linguistically productive by combining with other words to form compounds such as iso baking, iso bar, iso cut and iso fashion.
โMany of us found humour in language use as a way to cope with our changed working and social circumstances, so why not talk about a bad self-inflicted haircut as an iso cut, or the extra weight gained due to lack of exercise as iso kilos.โ
The words on the shortlist reflect the impact of the pandemic in 2020, with only one word chosen that was not related to the virus and its effects.
The full 2020 shortlist includes:
- Black Summer: the summer of 2019/2020, during which catastrophic bushfires occurred in southeastern Australia.
- bubble: a district, region, or a group of people viewed as a closed system, isolating from other districts, regions, or groups as a public health measure to limit the spread of COVID-19. โBubbleโ was also found in compounds such as โtravel bubbleโ, โgerm bubbleโ and โsporting bubbleโ.
- covid-normal: a state of adapting to an acceptable level of COVID-19 in the community.
- driveway: used in compounds referring to individual Anzac Day vigils in 2020, such as โdriveway Anzac serviceโ, โdriveway dawn serviceโ.
The Australian National Dictionary Centre undertakes research into Australian English in partnership with Oxford University Press Australia and New Zealand, and edits Oxfordโs Australian dictionaries.
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the Universityโs objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. OUP is the worldโs largest university press with the widest global presence.
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