Twindemic? Janky? Doomsday scrolling? When did these words jump out of the dark shadows and infect us?

I am compiling a list of words that have emerged and are showing up in everyday language, as an experiment on how language changes with circumstance. Also, the hypothesis is that many of these words will become more or less extinct by this time next year. Some of them show up in school, violating the dress code. Others, stick to my rubber earbuds when listening to a podcast.

• Coronahobby – Means exactly what it describes but, absent the hyphen
• Doomsscrolling – Obsessive scrolling through bad news
• Janky – When something is broken or a technology is not working to plan
• Twindemic – A terrible coined word repeated by the media, ad nauseam
• Covidiot – Someone who ignores COVID warnings, to his/her misfortune
• Intubation – When you want to show you know a lot about ventilator use
• Zoombombing – Uninvited guests during a Zoom call

Not so long ago we had to get used to these words. Remember these?:

• Deepfake
• Gig Economy
• Influencers
• OK Boomer
• TextNeck