language
“Unword of the Year” 2022 is chosen
Recently “Pushback” got the inglorious title. In the running for 2022: “special operation”, “special assets”, “gratis mentality” and “climate terrorists”. photo
© Stephan Jansen/dpa
From “special operations” to “climate terrorists” – a language-critical jury has received numerous suggestions for the new “nonsense”. She wants to promote appropriate use of language.
The “nonsense word of the year” 2022 will be announced today in Marburg, Hesse. The jury of the language-critical campaign received more than 1,400 suggestions this time, which interested parties could submit by the end of December last year. According to a spokeswoman, the terms received include “special operation”, “special assets”, “gratis mentality” and “climate terrorists”.
The proposals reflected on the one hand the public debates of the year and on the other hand the big events, said jury spokeswoman Constanze Spieß in December about the terms submitted up to that point. At the beginning of 2022, submissions related to the corona pandemic were still dominating. This abruptly decreased with the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine at the end of February.
Action serves to raise awareness
The choice of the “nonsense” is intended to draw attention to inappropriate use of language and thus raise awareness. The jury criticizes terms that violate the principles of human dignity or democracy, that discriminate against social groups or that are euphemistically, obscurely or misleadingly. According to the jury, the number of suggestions submitted for a single term is not important when deciding on a “nonsense”.
The “non-words” have been selected since 1991. Finally, the choice fell on “Pushback”. The term, which comes from English, means to push back or push back and is used in connection with possible illegal refoulement of migrants at the EU’s external border. A year ago, the jury criticized the use of the expression “because it glossed over a misanthropic process”.