2020 has created a dictionary’s worth of strange new words to describe these strange new times. How many can you define?
December 19, 2020
By AJ Willingham and Ivory Sherman
This time last year, if you told someone you were having a “quarantini,” they’d look at you like you had five heads. But things change. A LOT. Let’s see how much your pandemic-era vocabulary has expanded over the course of this strange year.
What do you call a small group of people you agree to socialize with during lockdowns and social distancing?
Some people have made “quaranteams” of close friends who agree to isolate from everyone except each other. Others have just bought a lot of house plants.
Which of these is an unfortunate side effect of wearing a mask?
Masks may be an important piece of safety equipment, but they can definitely wreak havoc on your skin. And no one likes maskne.
What do you call someone who boldly flouts basic coronavirus safety guidelines?
A “Covidiot” has become the common term, but “just plain rude” would also suffice.
What do you call it when you can’t stop looking at social media, even though everything is terrible and it makes you sad?
We’ve all been through a bout of doomscrolling this year, and nothing good ever comes of it.
On the other hand, what’s the term for scrolling through social media when something great has happened, and you just can’t get enough?
Gleefreshing! What a happy sounding word. Almost as happy as the action it describes.
If you’re in the mood to get intimate with someone, but you have to do it over video call, what do you call it?
And yes, the “Zooty” in “Zooty call” is a portmanteau of “Zoom” and “booty.”
When time runs together, weeks become months and months lose their meaning, what day is it?
All one really needs to know is whether it’s a weekday or a weekend. Besides that, it’s all Blursday.
What’s the signature lockdown drink (no matter what ingredients are involved)?
A Quarantini may be the most popular term for a nice Blursday wind-down, but we may switch it up and make a Cry Tai.
What is the term for the questionable style some people end up sporting when they must do their own hair maintenance at home?
Don’t make fun of someone’s coronacut. It mean’s they’re being safe and doing their best.
And finally, what term do we use to denote anything that happened before, say, March 2020?
“Remember in The Before Times, when there were restaurants and lots of sports and no one knew what ‘Zooty call’ meant?”
