第一段

Happy Blursday! Now quit doom scrolling, grab a quarantini and please keep social distancing.

Imagine explaining that sentence to yourself in December 2019.

This year has given us scoresof new words, phrases, expressions and metaphors. Some are new to the popular vernacular, like quarantine pod, while others are just newly relevant after long histories as specialized terms, like contact tracing.Some are technical, like super-spreader event and aerosoldroplets; some are packed with cultural meaning, like systemicracism and panic shopping; and others still, like maskne andwalktails, are just goofy little turns of phrase that let us find a drop of joyin this disastrous year. But all of them serve a purpose in these most uncertain times.

The sheer breadth of words thatwere popularized this year — everything from medical jargon to socialmedia-friendly shorthand — was particularly unusual. And for the first time since 2004, when Oxford Languages, the publisher of the O.E.D., started choosing a Word of the Year, it declined to pick just one.

We couldn't pick one, either.But here are the 20 words and phrases we think capture what it felt like to bealive in this unprecedented year of our quar, 2020.

第二段

Blursday

The passage of time itself became seemingly unreliable this year, as some days felt like a week while some months flew by in an instant. This quickly became a go-to Twitter meme as the combination of a relentless news cycle mixed with the droll, repetitive realityof life in lockdown, giving existence in 2020 a Groundhog Day-esque quality.Our friends at The Washington Post even launched a newsletter called "What Day Is It?"

Doom scrolling：

The catchall, platform-agnostic term for consuming bad news or information you know is detrimental to your mental health and wellness yet being unable to stop. "I think the doom scrolling thing validated alot of people's experiences," said the journalist Karen Ho, a.k.a. "Doom scrolling Reminder Lady," who helped popularize the term with hereight-months-running nightly Twitter reminders to put the phone away and get tosleep. "It's easy to feel like, 'Am I over reacting to everything goingon?'" she said. "At night people would scroll and be like, 'Oh,things are really bad, and if they're not bad for me they're bad for other people' and feel really helpless."

第三段

Front line workers：

In health care, you go to work every day, and your mandate is whatever your patients bring that day. Nurses, doctors, technicians, aides and housekeepers surely have putin heroic hours during the pandemic, placing themselves and their families atrisk. But we do it every day as patients grapple with the vulnerability that illness engenders. We do it every day when they need to unload their worries and their grief.

Health care is always frontlinework. The 7 p.m. cheer was the highlight of our days, both listening andparticipating. It was inspiring to witness our colleagues in action, to be partof this monumental effort. It was equally inspiring to feel the public'sappreciation. But even after Covid-19 is tamed by the forth coming vaccines,health care workers will still be front line workers. Because you never know what will show up tomorrow.

Social distancing：

The pandemic forced us tore-evaluate our relationship with physical space and the way in which we occupyit. As experts learned more about the spread of the virus, "6 feet" became thegolden number: The distance we should stay away from others to prevent thespread of Covid-19, yes, but also a short hand for how to navigate socializationin the new world.

Virtual happy hour：

The early weeks of lockdown,like the virus itself, were novel. As people searched for new ways to stay entertained and hold onto some semblance of normalcy from home, the question ofhow to socialize was paramount. And so virtual happy hours became the event dujour. The wine — and quarantinis — flowed as heavily as the Zoom event invites,and we all … well, we just got kind of drunk in front of our computers a whole bunch.