In 2015 smombie became the Youth Word of the Year in Germany. In January 2016 a survey found that 92 per cent of the young people asked did not know the meaning of smombie. Smombie is a portmanteau word composed from smartphone and zombie, used for those people who stumble about the street looking at their phones. Like many nonce formations it did not catch on.
What, you may ask, was a putatively English word doing as the German youth choice? Certainly there is quite a bit of English vocabulary thrown lightly about by young people in Germany. The word of the year for 2020 is lost, but it was very nearly bastard, for which a humorous campaign was mounted till it was stamped on.
The process of choosing the words has been open to manipulation, but the organisers plough on because, as in Britain, it is a useful publicity device for dictionaries. Thus the Cambridge Dictionary chose quarantine as its word of 2020. It had notched up 28,545 searches online. As Cambridge pointed out, the word has seen a shift in meaning, or at least reference. This year (particularly in the United States) it has been applied to a lockdown or self-isolation motivated by a fear of catching the virus rather than spreading it.
By determining the word of the year by the number of online searches, Cambridge avoided crowning Covid-19 or coronavirus as the obvious victors. People soon knew what those words meant, so they didn’t look them up. In Germany, the method had been by nominations and online discussions preceding a choice by a jury. Langenscheidt, the dictionary company, was the sponsor in 2015 when smombie won. The jury held out against a word supported by 36 per cent of the youth participants, merkeln, a verb for taking one’s time before acting, in the manner of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in