The words and phrases of 2020 that need to no longer exist

We’re sick to death of hearing them. We’ve probably said a few of them. Hamish MacBain presents the words of 2020 that need to go
Words that need cancelling
Markus Winkler
Hamish MacBain6 November 2020

Ramp up

First entry into the Government’s lexicon of ever-so-slightly pornographic, endlessly parroted pandemic phrases. Particularly irritating when paired with our prime minister’s scatter-bomb and entirely random approach to the emphasis of  words in sentences, ie: ‘We MUST try to really AND truly RAMP up our commitment TO helping people  EAT OUT to help out.’

Cancel culture

Saying, ‘I really don’t think cancel culture is a good thing,’ has become this year’s ‘You know, the thing about Instagram is it’s not a true representation of people’s lives’. Look, people being hung out to dry for an offhand remark they tweeted in 2012 is, obviously, not great. We all acknowledge this and the need for it to end. Now stop telling us, and instead use the time to delete all that nasty stuff you said about Megan from Love Island’s hair just to  be safe.  

‘Look...’

Violently condescending way to begin a sentence, the subtext of which is: ‘I’m now going to provide the definitive summation of this discussion-slash-argument so we can move on, thanks to me.’ See above entry.

Eerily prescient

These two words that nobody in history has ever uttered out loud are now locked into an unholy union. That much-mocked video of Robbie Williams hand-sanitising after giving his front row a collective high five? Eerily prescient. That tweet you spent ages digging out of your favourite celebrity saying something derogatory about Trump back when Trump was just a draft-dodging builder of enormo-scrapers? Oooh, eerie. And prescient. The only thing that, in 2020, could reasonably be described as eerily prescient is the movie Contagion. Except it’s not: it’s just the very, very good work of a screenwriter who really did his research.

XX stands in solidarity with...

‘Hi Jen, we’ve not met but I’m the CEO of the company. Just noticed that all the other vegan energy-muffin brands have got a post up about that march that’s going on in Trafalgar Square. Can we get something similar up ASAP?’ Additional note to any individual intending to ‘stand in solidarity’: the least you can do is actually stand up from your home workspace so as to cut and paste that tweet that someone else wrote while not sitting down.

Covidiot

Extraordinarily inelegant combination of words that is no fun whatsoever to say and is one hell of a bumpy ride even to read. Come on, media community: we can do better. We gave the world ‘staycation’, ‘Brangelina’, ‘Wagatha Christie’... together, we got this.

We got this

Or more commonly, ‘You got this’: mantra of Instagram personal trainers and a phrase that has the same effect on the ears as an unasked-for shoulder rub from your boss would on your brain.

Game changer

This year has taught us many lessons, but few have been more important than the lesson that this phrase should only ever be used retrospectively. We are just — just — about at a point when we can safely declare Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the internet or the Kanye West album 808s & Heartbreaks game changers, and both of those things happened ages ago. Pre-emptively declaring that antibody testing (which more than six months on still hasn’t really arrived) would be ‘a game changer’ was, looking back, a game changer only in that it made everyone realise how real — to culturally appropriate another hip hop-ism — shit was about to get.

Tirelessly

Apparently nobody in authority doing any work of any kind this year has slept at all. They probably should have.  

— spoiler alert! —

Film preview-ism that is now used solely by the not-clever to turn their crushingly banal utterances into non-witticisms, eg ‘Just watched Matt Hancock promising to — spoiler alert! — ramp up testing.’

Bond

Could you imagine a more perfect pandemic narrative than one of the most iconic (note to self: ‘iconic’ should have been in this list) British film characters of all time swooping in to single-handedly save the entire British cinema industry? We could have had massive posters of Daniel Craig, besuited and with that ‘no mor... how much? Okay, maybe one more’ look in his eyes, with quotes above him such as, ‘Get down to your local multiplex and help Bond with his most important assignment ever!’ Or, ‘Try to bring cinema back in one piece, Bond.’ Or, ‘It’s like Tenet, but with penetrable dialogue!’ But no. Bond cancelled himself this year in more ways than one, and must not be spoken of for a good while.

Unprecedented

Yes, one high-profile ‘unprecedented’  thing happened this year. But all subsequent supposedly ‘unprecedented’ things that have happened are all part of the one,  big ‘unprecedented’ thing, and not ‘unprecedented’ in and of themselves. Fun fact: this word is banned from use in the paper by the editor of the Evening Standard.

I’m just reaching out

The most irritating of all email-isms. You’re not in the Four Tops, babes.

Might/could

Look back at some headlines that freaked you out in the past eight months. Chances are they all featured a quote from your fave scientific expert/politician/piano tuner that contained one of these two words. ‘Covid-19 MIGHT cause a global shortage of those really nice hula hoop knock-offs M&S does’; ‘In 2021 we COULD all look back and realise some of the guidelines didn’t make sense.’ Here’s a suggestion: think about how likely what you — you little Nostradamus, you — are predicting  actually is. Consider whether you’d be comfortable substituting the phrase, ‘will almost certainly’. If not, it might/could be a good idea to keep quiet.

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