WHAT WERE PEOPLE THINKING OF IN 2017?

By Trishna Buch
2017 was an eventful year, to say the least. We all know
that it wasn’t all roses, sunshine and daises. There was
loss, there was hate, there was violence and there was
pain. But there was also love, togetherness, bravery
and strength. With everything that happened this year,
both good and bad, it is safe to say that big changes
happened this year; all of which will play a role in how
the world moves forward.
It has often been said that you can tell the type of a
person is from their music playlist. I agree with this fact,
but I also believe that you can tell a lot about someone
from everything they choose to educate themselves on.
And, each year, one thing that people like to increase
their knowledge on is the meaning of words that may
have played an important role throughout the year. So
I found a website that broke down the top 10 words of
the year, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I
wanted to look at these words to gain an idea of everything
that was on the minds of people in 2017.
This year was filled with several catastrophic natural
disasters. Among many, hurricanes Harvey, Jose,
Maria and Irma wreaked havoc on so many cities—to
the point where there are still so many individuals dealing
with the aftermath of these storms. We saw this
firsthand at the end of August, when Hurricane Harvey
barreled through our towns and caused widespread
devastation. While these storms were occurring, there
was an increase in people who wanted to learn more
about hurricanes, how they were caused and what they
entailed. Therefore, these people took the dictionary to
look up the meaning of hurricane, making it one of the
top 10 words researched last year.
Now, here at The Post, we try to stay away from
politics. But, considering the political climate we are
currently experiencing, it wouldn’t be wise to completely
ignore it. President Donald Trump took his oath in
January 2017 and, with everything that has happened
between January and December, there was a rise in
people looking up the meanings of politically related
words. In fact, according to the website, words like
complicit, recuse, empathy, dotard and federalism—all
of which are related to politics—made the list. For a
detailed explanation of these words, and their political
connection, go online to /www.merriam-webster.com/
words-at-play/word-of-the-year-2017-feminism/gaffe.
But not every word looked up was motivated by politics
or disasters. In fact, some words were looked up
due to exciting events, hilarious television moments
and just a simple fact of wanting to know how a word is
pronounced. On August 21, North America witnessed a
total solar eclipse, causing everyone to stop what they
were doing, pull on their eclipse glasses and run outside
to get a glimpse of this beautiful event. And, after
we had our fill, we ran back to our computers to look
up the word syzygy, to better understand this celestial
event.
Earlier in the year, in March, a sketch on The Tonight
Show between host Jimmy Fallon and country music
singer Luke Bryan caused an increase in the number
of people looking up the word gyro. Why? Because the
sketch consisted of a music video entitled ‘I Don’t Know
How to Pronounce Gyro.’ So, of course, people wanted
to know how is gyro pronounced? Well, after looking at
the website of Merriam-Webster’s top 10 words of 2017,
I have learned that there are two pronunciations of the
term; one of which is for the food-related term we all
know and the other which is used as the short form pronunciation
of the terms gyroscope and gyrocompass.
For a more detailed explanation, refer to the website.
Now, who can forget one of the biggest television
blunders of the year, when the movie La La Land was
mistakenly celebrated as Best Picture at the OSCARS,
before it came to light that the award presenters had
been given the wrong envelope and true winner was
the movie Moonlight. As a result, there was a spike in
people turning to the dictionary to look up the term gaffe
for several months following the blunder.
Finally, between the Woman’s March in January, followed
by countless women and men starting to come
forward and share their stories and experiences of
harassment and showing signs of immense strength,
the word feminism was the number one looked-up word
of 2017. Every person has a different belief of what the
word means but, in its simplest form, it is the belief that
every person should be treated equally. According to
the website, not only did the aforementioned events
bring rise to people researching the definition of the
word, but so did several news reports and the entertainment
world. I know that the word feminism continues to
have a very negative connotation, so it is nice to see
that people are attempting to learn the true meaning of
feminism for themselves.
If you’d like to read the entire list and see where all the
words fell, please do visit the website at www.merriamwebster.
com/words-at-play/word-of-the-year-2017-feminism/
feminism. It was quite interesting to learn about
the most looked-up words of last year and I can’t wait
to see what they are in 2018.