Time - USA (2019-12-23)

41

LANGUAGE

(^2019) THE YEAR IN
(^) By Cady Lang and Megan McCluskey

FLYGSKAM

noun

1: “Flight shame” (Swedish)

2: A movement encouraging people

to stop traveling by plane in order to

reduce carbon emissions

HINDUTVA

noun

1: An ideology that seeks to define

Indian culture through Hindu values

2: A concept underpinning the Hindu

nationalist movement that helped

Narendra Modi win a second term as

Prime Minister of India

hot girl

adjective

Confident and unapologetic,

as expressed in rapper Megan

Thee Stallion’s call for her fans

to have a “hot girl summer”

streaming wars

noun

The battle for market control among subscription

streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Disney+

COLLUSION

noun

Secret cooperation for an illegal or illicit purpose

QUID PRO QUO

noun

A favor for a favor (Latin), as in

reference to allegations that President

Donald Trump withheld hundreds of

millions of dollars in military aid to

Ukraine to pressure the country into

investigating Joe Biden and his son

CAMP

noun

A pointedly exaggerated mode of expression

(and the theme of May’s Met Gala)

THEMSELF

pronoun

A gender-neutral reflexive singular pronoun,

used in place of himself or herself, per

a definition added to Merriam-Webster’s

dictionary in September

this man

noun

1: Someone you probably

should know but either don’t

or refuse to recognize

2: Former Vice President

Dick Cheney, as per a viral

Vanity Fair interview with

actor and singer Keke Palmer

QUANTUM

SUPREMACY

noun

The development of a computer that uses

the laws of quantum physics to complete

tasks no conventional computer can do in

a reasonable amount of time—i.e., solving

in minutes a problem that would take

another supercomputer 10,000 years, as

Google says its quantum processor can

SELF-PARTNERED

adjective

Happily unattached, romantically, as

coined by actor Emma Watson in an

interview with British Vogue

prorogue

verb

To suspend a legislative assembly session

without dissolving it, as U.K. Prime Minister

Boris Johnson tried to do to Parliament in

an attempt to force a “no deal” Brexit

SINGLE-USE

adjective

Designed to be used only once

before being disposed, often

applied to plastic items such as

straws, bottles and bags

SKSKSKSK

interjection

An expression of humor, frustration or

surprise originating from the position of

thumbs on a cell-phone keyboard

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOMI UM FOR TIME