Parastronaut, permacrisis, Kyiv… the words of 2022

Overview of the words that marked the year around the world

parastronaut

In November 2022, Briton John McFall became the first parastronaut hired by the European Space Agency. He will take part in a new program to study access to spaceflight for astronauts with disabilities.

Kurzfristenergieversorgungssicherungsmaßnahmenverordnung

The winter will be long in Germany. As long as that 56-letter word that must be worth a bundle in Scrabble. This extended term, which literally means “decree relating to measures intended to quickly guarantee the supply of energy”, obviously refers to the measures taken in the country to save on energy consumption and reduce its dependence on Russian gas. A challenge faced by other European countries that are suffering from the strip of war in Ukraine and are contorting to tighten their belts.

Hiperinflation

It is not only inflation that has plagued the Venezuelan economy for several years. With an annual rate of 155%, we are talking more about hyperinflation! At the end of 2022, as in many other countries, inflation nevertheless slowed its progression in Venezuela. Which makes some economists fear that the word 2023 could well start with “r”…

queen consort

With the return of a king to the throne of the United Kingdom, the term “queen consort” resurfaces, 70 years after it was last used. According to our rudiments of Latin, consort means that Camilla has a “common fate” with Charles, although she does not share sovereignty or the status of commander of the armies. Why was the late Philippe, husband of the late Elisabeth, only a simple “prince” consort? That is the questionas Shakespeare would say.

Metavers

The conceptual future now imposes itself on the present. The abstract joins the concrete. Welcome to the metaverse, a parallel digital universe where it is now possible to live, work, consume, invest and fuck in virtual reality. The word is not entirely new. We find it in 1992 in the science fiction novel Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson. But the dictionary Oxford notes that its use has quadrupled in 2022 compared to the previous year.

Hull

Name of a constellation located in the southern hemisphere where we find Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky. The dazzling images of the ‘Carina Nebula’, part of this constellation, were among the first sent to us by the new telescope James Webb in July 2022.

Украна, #IStandWith, Kyiv, Z YkpaïHa

It wasn’t just gunfire and terror that swept over Ukraine when Russia invaded the country on February 24. A wave of new words and new expressions have entered the vocabulary. Ukrainians proudly reclaimed their language, and demanded that their capital be identified as “Kyiv” instead of “kyiv” from now on. On the Russian side, words like “military operation” or “denazification” marked the official discourse. On their tanks, a simple letter was displayed: Z. Absent from the Cyrillic alphabet, this letter was recovered for Russian propaganda purposes as a symbol of support for Vladimir Putin.

What the dictionaries say…

Dictionary collins : permacrisis

Global warming, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, inflation and the cost of romaine lettuce, overflowing hospitals, refugees being turned back at borders, school shootings, a new/old virus that circulating, the price of real estate, the third line of the Canadian… As Bernard said in the cult play Neighbors “Is there any way that nothing will happen? ” Nope. It’s ‘permacrisis’, the era of endless crisis, that has characterized 2022, according to the British dictionary collins.

Dictionary Merriam Webster : gaslighting

A generator of confusion and mistrust, the gaslighting – of gas light, literally “gaslighting” – involves manipulating the mind to better exert control over a person. The origin of the expression dates back to a 1938 play, in which secret experiments carried out by a man in the attic had the effect of varying the intensity of the light from the gas lamps in the house. To his wife who wondered about this phenomenon, her husband replied that there was no variation, that everything was “in his head”.

Dictionary Oxford : Goblin mode

We knew about Tolkien’s little creatures and Spiderman’s rival villain. Now here comes the post-COVID Goblin, as in “living in Goblin mode” (goblin mode, in English). Living in Goblin mode means refusing to return “as before” confinement. It’s staying at home dressed in soft clothes, going out in pajamas and flip flops to buy a pint of milk, spending your days binge-watching series while eating cold pizza. In short, voluntary and assumed self-containment, accompanied by an abandonment of the criteria of excellence, variation of “I crisse everything”. You may laugh, but it’s a real trend. Moreover, this text was written in a dressing gown.