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Pour one out for amateur word-watchers. Ordinarily, a passing interest in word of the year competitions is a relaxing, even enjoyable pastime.

See a novel noun or germane gerund? Write it down, return to it around November, and see if a dictionary agreed with you.

Not so this year. Coronavirus is the ur-topic; compared to it, all else seems trivial. As early as March, the US lexicographer Grant Barrett had lockdown and self-quarantine among a swag of viral terms he’d predicted could take the gong.

Read this article from abc.net.au here.