 |
| #CollinsWOTY |
'Single-use' named 2018 word of the year
Guardian:
11.06.2018 by Alison Flood
Collins Dictionary picks term
referring to products made to be used once and thrown away as word of the year
after rise in environmental awareness
Single-use,
a term referring to products – often made of plastic –that are made to be used
once and thrown away, has been named Collins Dictionary’s word of the year for
2018.
Collins,
whose lexicographers monitor a 4.5bn-word corpus to come up with an annual list
of new and notable words, said images such as those seen in the BBC’s Blue
Planet II, in
which albatrosses unwittingly feed their chicks plastic, had contributed to
the increased usage of the term single-use. It also pointed to increased public
awareness of the problems that single-use products bring. The
European parliament recently backed a ban on single-use plastics such as straws, cotton swabs,
disposable plates and bottles and cutlery; it is expected to come into effect
in 2021. The UK is also planning
to introduce a tax
on plastic packaging.
“Images
of plastic adrift in the most distant oceans, such as straws, bottles and bags,
have led to a global campaign to reduce their use,” said the dictionary. “The
word [single-use] has seen a four-fold increase since 2013.”
The
dictionary defines single-use as “made to be used once only”, calling it “a
term that describes items whose unchecked proliferation are blamed for damaging
the environment and affecting the food chain”. It follows 2017’s word of the
year, “fake
news”, and 2016’s selection, Brexit.
The
10 words nominated for Collins Dictionary word of 2018
Backstop
Floss
Gammon
Gaslight
MeToo
Plogging
Single-use
VAR
Vegan
Whitewash
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment