Economic terms such as bumping, inflation, gas pipeline, cryptocurrency or gigafactory predominate and others such as diversity, ecocide, flu, sex doping or artificial intelligence creep in.
The Urgent Spanish Foundation (FundéuRAE), promoted by the EFE agency and the Royal Spanish Academy, has selected its twelve candidates for word of the year 2022. The war in Ukraine and its consequences, both economic and social, as well as technology or the environment, are the themes that stand out this year.
These twelve terms have been selected because of their special presence in the media and in the social debate during the past twelve months. Moreover, they are linguistically interesting, either because of the way they came about, or because of their meaning, or simply because they caused doubt in the speakers.
It is the tenth time that the FundéuRAE has chosen its word of the year; the previous ones were escrache (2013), selfi (2014), refugee (2015), populism (2016), aporophobia (2017), microplastic (2018), emojis (2019), incarceration (2020), and vaccine (2021). In 2022, the winner will be announced on December 29.
These are the candidates:
Apocalypse
The threat of nuclear war or the climate emergency are two of the reasons that have increased the presence of this voice in 2022. From a linguistic point of view, the use of apocalypse is preferable to refer to a conflict involving extermination or great destruction, rather than armageddon, the name of the place where the battle between good and evil takes place, according to the biblical book of Revelation.
cryptocurrency
2022 has been a turbulent year for cryptocurrencies, which have suffered significant declines and lost much of their value. The constituent element crypto- has expanded its meaning and is applied in addition to “hidden, concealed” to those words related to digital transactions secured by cryptography. In this sense, other terms have also been formed, such as crypto scam, crypto business…
diversity
The academic dictionary defines diversity as ‘variety, dissimilarity, difference’. It is a word that has stood out in the past year for its presence in very different areas (social, cultural, environmental…). In recent times it has acquired a very important nuance, decisive when it comes to describing the society, an institution or an educational program (just to give a few examples). It is present in many of the programs and statements that influence social change.
ecocide
This noun is used to refer to serious damage done in the ecosystems of a place. It is formed by the combination of two compositional elements: eco-, meaning ‘vital environment’ or ‘ecological’, and -cidio (‘action of killing’, as in murder and manslaughter).
Pipeline
The war in Ukraine has heightened tensions over gas from Russia, on which several countries depend, leading to fierce negotiations. The term gas pipeline, better than gas pipeline, is the correct one to refer to the pipes through which the fuel is transported.
giant factory
Gigafactories are car battery factories that can store one gigawatt hour. For example, the Foundation explained in a recommendation that in this neologism the prefix gigano- is used to express that it is a large factory, but instead refers to gigawatts.
make flu
Variant, health, coronavirus and pandemic were some of the candidates over the past two years. And the last two winners were incarceration (2020) and vaccine (2021). Two years later, flu is the only word related to the pandemic on this list. This verb, as well as its derivative flu, has been used to refer to a new situation in the pandemic, where covid now only requires sentry surveillance, similar to that for the flu.
Inflation
The general rise in prices in almost all countries has attracted the attention of the media, governments and, of course, consumers, who have noticed how shopping baskets, electricity bills and fuels have become more expensive in recent months. The correct spelling of this word is with a single C, not inflation, and other terms are derived from it: reduction, stagflation, hyperinflation…
Artificial intelligence
It is not a new concept, but in 2022 it has sounded particularly strong due to the multitude of applications of this technology: from making illustrations, writing novels or having conversations to programming codes at a humane level. But once again this year there has been widespread discussion about the ethical implications and the changes that may entail for some professionals.
The phrase artificial intelligence is written with a lowercase letter, although the acronym (AI) is written with a capital letter.
sex drug
It is an acronym, that is, a word formed by the association of others (in this case, sex and doping). It is the Foundation’s proposed alternative to the anglicism chemsex, used to refer to sexual activity, usually between several persons, practiced under the influence of stimulants. Other derivatives such as sex doping or sex dopar have been made from this voice.
come across
Inflation, and especially the rise in gas prices, made several governments consider the possibility of setting a price cap (ceiling). The verb to top (and untop) is common and adequate in the economic field, although its use has spread and become especially frequent in the language of politicians and the media.
Ukrainian
The war in Ukraine has received a lot of media attention since it began in February. Eleven months later, the Russian invasion continues and the world is still watching what is happening in the Ukrainian country. While the Ukrainian demonym is also valid, the Ukrainian form has been established and recommended in academic works.
Source: La Verdad
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