The 2020 Word of the Year contenders were more numerous than candidates on the first California gubernatorial ballot in 2006. They spanned sometimes intersecting categories that included politics, technology, Zoom, social movements and, of course, the COVID-19 virus: “dumpster fire,” “Blursday,” “the Rona” and her sisters “Miss Rona” and “Aunt Rona,” “you’re muted,” “kraken.” - ADVERTISEMENT - Dictionary lookups and frequency of use rather than creativity power the choice of Word of the Year, and so, a couple of comparatively ordinary choices won the honor. Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com selected “pandemic,” and the Oxford English Dictionary, gobsmacked by the unprecedented cats-and-dogs rain of new words and sudden popularity of common ones, picked “unprecedented.” You can download the report at the link if you regularly attend to couching your words as well as attending to vacuuming the couch after the beagle’s jumped off.