They’re all perfectly cromulent.
All years are defined by political events, but 2016 will undoubtedly be remembered as a year that was unlike any other. Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen Britain voting to leave the EU, Trump’s electoral win in the US and an increasing threat to the stability of the EU as people like Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders become increasingly prominent.
In this climate, the word post-truth has been revealed as the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year. In case you aren’t familiar with its meaning, they’ve defined it as “rather than simply referring to the time after a specified situation or event – as in post-war or post-match – the prefix in post-truth has a meaning more like ‘belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant’. This nuance seems to have originated in the mid-20th century, in formations such as post-national (1945) and post-racial (1971)”.
The time period where the word spiked in its frequency of usage is quite telling.
There’s a distinctly political feel to the majority of the other words that were in contention for the Word of the Year accolade. Woke, Chatbot and Adulting were all included. Take a look at the full list below.
Stay woke to etymology people.
