It's been six months since Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the country would have to abide by strict restrictions on our normal lives, including only leaving the house once a day for exercise. Since then, our lives have changed forever: and so has our language. Here's a look at the words we've taken onboard in 2020.
Social Distancing - an oxymoron that we’ve now all taken on to describe hanging out with friends and family at a ‘safe’ distance. Bad news for those who enjoy casual hook ups and being rammed into someone’s armpit on the train: we were all told that 2 metres was the safe distance to stand from another person if we wanted to avoid Covid. Now used as a caveat in Instagram captions to explain why people were at a party ie: ‘Social distanced...of course!’.
Face Masks - these used to be something we put on to indulge in Self Care Sunday, now a piece of cloth you legally can't shop without.
Staycation - this used to mean ‘I’m taking time off work, but I’m going to stay at home and sort my life out for a week’. You’d do laundry, sleep in, go to some exhibitions, get drunk on a Wednesday night perhaps. Staycations are now actually holidays, because the majority of us have declined to get back on a flight since March, so have been doing things they wouldn’t normally dream of like ‘glamping’ in the Yorkshire Dales, or managing to book the last remaining AirBnb in Newquay for five days and watching as their kids learn to surf in the rain, and eating chips by the side of the road. These weeks are normally surmised on the first Zoom chat back at work by saying, ‘Well, it was nice to have a few days off in the fresh air anyway’.
Houseparty - house parties used to be fun. Everyone would bring a bottle (someone would bring Echo Falls), there would be snacks, dancing, arguments, someone would lock themselves in the bathroom crying. I’d kill to do any of these things right now. But Houseparty now refers to the possibly-stealing-your-personal-data app which was widely downloaded in March so groups of friends could meet up on one platform. Get ready to re-download that bad boy.
Mute - as in ‘You’re on mute Becky’. We’ve all got that one colleague who launches into the morning meeting without unmuting themselves. Every single time. Or the one who doesn’t mute themselves, meaning the rest of the team has to listen to their white wash finishing up whilst they nod along sagely.
R rate - someone at the neighbouring table to you in the pub (two metres away, of course) is a freelance epidemiologist, or at least that how it sounds as they seem to have a lot of theories about the R rate and what it means. This person has probably also ‘completed’ a Rubix cube and brings beers from home to drink in the pub.
Buffets - these are now known as deathtraps
Covidiot - does what it says on the tin, this portmanteau describes the people who can’t seem to understand how an infection spreads. If you look this term up in the dictionary you will find the residents of a Cheshire street who performed a conga ‘to celebrate VE Day’ during the first peak of infections.
Barnard Castle - once just a market town in the Durham Dales, thanks to Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings, Barnard Castle is now apparently also a popular place to get an eye test by driving hundred of miles there if you’re in recovery from Covid.
Waist Up Dressing - if there had to be one motto when it came to lockdown dressing it has been ‘business up top, leisure down bottom’. Smart shirts with joggers, blazers with leggings, blouses with just your underwear on down below: anything goes as long as the Zoom camera can’t see it.
Work From Home - telling people you were WFH used to get a raised eyebrow. Oh yeah, WFH is it? More like lying on the sofa sleepily replying to emails on your phone while you caught up on Love Island. WFH is no longer a euphemism for sleeping in and logging off early, however. Many of us have been doing our jobs entirely from home for the last six months (Grazia included) and if anything the general mood is that we’re working harder than ever before. Out of Office has lost all meaning: most of us are.
Zoom - which brings us to Zoom. Most of us had never heard of the virtual meeting platform until March of this year, when the majority of us signed up so we could meet for work and quizzes. The novelty of seeing your colleagues’ houses wore off after week one. We are still triggered by the thought of the quizzes. Please let’s not bring back a second wave for Christmas.
Unprecedented Times - this became the email cliche of the year, with every company rushing to tell its employees, and every business to tell its customers, that they were there for them during these unprecedented times (we will also accept: ‘uncertain times’).
Bubble - used to be something kids played with in the park, now something which dictates your social life
Maskne - the chin and cheek spots you get from wearing your mask now has its own name
Furlough - sounds like something you might do on a farm, is really a ‘leave of absence’ which was initiated for millions of workers as part of a paid government scheme in March
TikTok - most of us had never heard of this video sharing platform until March when suddenly everyone was taking part in minute long dance trends initiated by Gen Z-ers whose only discernible talent seemed to be sticking their tongue out the side of their mouth. Bonus points if you got a crush on a topless frat boy called Chad.
Tie Dye - this was something you perhaps did at school or on a rainy day when you were a kid. Suddenly it became the aesthetic of a whole year. People bought tie dye tracksuits, tie dye hair scrunchies, tie dye masks, we even watched as TikTokers tie dyed their underwear. Tie dye wedding dresses will surely be the final frontier of this madness.
Joe Wicks - once a fitness influencer, Joe suddenly became the country's personal trainer when he started daily workouts for parents and kids via Youtube.
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