Entertainment

Merriam-Webster picks ‘vaccine’ as the 2021 word of the year

With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine.

“This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement.

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“It really represents two different stories. One is the science story, which is this remarkable speed with which the vaccines were developed. But there’s also the debates regarding policy, politics, and political affiliation. It’s one word that carries these two huge stories,” he said.

The selection follows “vax” as word of the year from the folks who publish the Oxford English Dictionary. And it comes after Merriam-Webster chose “pandemic” as tops in lookups last year on its online site.

“The pandemic was the gun going off and now we have the aftereffects,” Sokolowski said.

At Merriam-Webster, lookups for “vaccine” increased 601 percent over 2020, when the first US shot was administered in New York in December after quick development, and months of speculation and discussion over efficacy. The world’s first jab occurred earlier that month in the UK.

Compared to 2019, when there was little urgency or chatter about vaccines, Merriam-Webster logged an increase of 1,048 percent in lookups this year.

Debates over inequitable distribution, vaccine mandates and boosters kept interest high, Sokolowski said. So did vaccine hesitancy and friction over vaccine passports.

The word “vaccine” wasn’t birthed in a day, or due to a single pandemic. The first known use stretches back to 1882 but references pop up earlier related to fluid from cowpox pustules used in inoculations, Sokolowski said.

It was borrowed from the New Latin “vaccina,” which goes back to Latin’s feminine “vaccinus,” meaning “of or from a cow.” The Latin for cow is “vacca,” a word that might be akin to the Sanskrit “vasa,” according to Merriam-Webster.

Inoculation, on the other hand, dates to 1714, in one sense referring to the act of injecting an “inoculum.”

Earlier this year, Merriam-Webster added to its online entry for “vaccine” to cover all the talk of mRNA vaccines, or messenger vaccines such as those for COVID-19 developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

While other dictionary companies choose words of the year by committee, Merriam-Webster bases its selection on lookup data, paying close attention to spikes and, more recently, year-over-year increases in searches after weeding out evergreens.

The company has been declaring a word of the year since 2008.

Among its runners-up in the word biography of 2021:

INSURRECTION: Interest was driven by the deadly Jan. 6 siege on the US Capitol. Arrests continue, as do congressional hearings over the attack by supporters of President Donald Trump. Some of Trump’s allies have resisted subpoenas, including Steve Bannon.

Searches for the word increased by 61,000 percent over 2020, Sokolowksi said.

INFRASTRUCTURE: President Joe Biden was able to deliver what Trump often spoke of but never achieved: A bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law. When Biden proposed help with broadband access, eldercare and preschool, conversation changed from not only roads and bridges but “figurative infrastructure,” Sokolowski said.

“Many people asked, what is infrastructure if it’s not made out of steel or concrete? Infrastructure, in Latin, means underneath the structure,” he said.

PERSEVERANCE: It’s the name of NASA’s latest Mars rover. It landed Feb. 18, 2021. “Perseverance is the most sophisticated rover NASA has ever sent to the Red Planet, with a name that embodies NASA’s passion, and our nation’s capability, to take on and overcome challenges,” the space agency said.

The name was thought up by Alexander Mather, a 14-year-old seventh-grader at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. He participated in an essay contest organized by NASA. He was one of 28,000 K-12 students to submit entries.

NOMAD: The word had its moment with the 2020 release of the film “Nomadland.” It went on to win three Oscars in April 2021, including best picture, director (Chloé Zhao) and actress (Frances McDormand). Zhao became the first woman of color to win best director.

The AP’s film writer Jake Coyle called the indie success “a plain-spoken meditation on solitude, grief and grit. He wrote that it “struck a chord in a pandemic-ravaged year. It made for an unlikely Oscar champ: A film about people who gravitate to the margins took center stage.”

Other words in Merriam-Webster’s Top 10: Cicada (we had an invasion), guardian (the Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians), meta (the lofty new name of Facebook’s parent company), cisgender (a gender identity that corresponds to one’s sex assigned at birth), woke (charged with politics and political correctness) and murraya (a tropical tree and the word that won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee for 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde).

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Entertainment

Asian art fair in Hong Kong aims to bounce back after COVID-19 years

The organizers of Art Basel Hong Kong, one of Asia’s leading contemporary art fairs, said on Tuesday they are bullish on art market prospects in the region, with China and Hong Kong now having lifted all COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
The annual fair, which also has iterations in Basel, Paris, and Miami Beach, runs from March 23-25 in Hong Kong.

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The number of galleries has increased to 177 this year from 130 in 2022, with 32 countries and territories across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa participating.
“Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the Asian art market has also remained resilient, with Greater China accounting for 20 percent of worldwide sales by value and ranking second as the second largest regional art market in the latest edition of the Art Basel,” Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz told reporters.
Hong Kong attracted 56 million visitors in pre-pandemic 2019 but shops now sit vacant and Chinese visitors, who once propelled the city’s art market, have yet to return in droves.
Leading international galleries at Art Basel this year include Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Lehmann Maupin, Victoria Miro, Pace, Perrotin, White Cube and David Zwirner.
In a mall near the glitzy halls of Hong Kong’s harborfront convention center where Art Basel, the show has installed a 10-meter-tall inflatable sculpture of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun titled ‘Gravity’ by Los Angeles-based artist Awol Erizku.
Hong Kong’s government has welcomed the art fair as it strives to reinvigorate Hong Kong’s economy after a nearly three-year slump from factors including tough COVID-19 lockdowns, a closed border with China, and a security crackdown.
Hundreds of thousands of people have left the territory since June 2020, when a sweeping national security law was passed that has been used to curb freedoms and arrest scores of opposition democrats and shutter liberal media outlets.
Some Western governments have criticized the law as a tool of repression, but China asserts it brought stability after pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Art Basel said it had respected creative expression.
“We don’t have any censorship process in the show. We haven’t really changed the process of the show since 2013,” said Angelle Siyang-Le, the director Art Basel Hong Kong.

Entertainment

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow to stand trial for ski crash in upscale Utah resort

Gwyneth Paltrow is scheduled to stand trial on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by a retired optometrist who said that the actress-turned-lifestyle influencer violently crashed into him in 2016 while skiing in Utah at one of the most upscale ski resorts in the United States.

Terry Sanderson, 76, said Paltrow was cruising down the slopes so recklessly that they collided, leaving him on the ground as she and her entourage continued their descent down Deer Valley Resort, a skiers-only mountain known for its groomed runs, après-ski champagne yurts and posh clientele.

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“Gwyneth Paltrow skied out of control,” Sanderson’s attorneys claim in the lawsuit, “knocking him down hard, knocking him out, and causing a brain injury, four broken ribs and other serious injuries. Paltrow got up, turned, and skied away, leaving Sanderson stunned, lying in the snow, seriously injured.”

In a case that has lasted years since the 2016 incident, Sanderson is suing Paltrow for $300,000 — claiming that the accident in Park City was a result of negligence, and left him with physical injuries and emotional distress.

At ski resorts, the skier who is downhill has the right of way, so a central question in the case is who was further down the beginner’s run when the collision transpired. Both Paltrow and Sanderson claim in court filings that they were further downhill when the other rammed into them.

Sanderson also accused Deer Valley and its employees of engaging in a “cover up” by not providing complete information on incident reports and not following resort safety policies.

After his initial lawsuit seeking $3.1 million was dropped, Sanderson amended the complaint and he is now seeking $300,000. Paltrow — the Oscar-winning actress known for her roles in “Shakespeare in Love” and Marvel’s “Iron Man” movies — filed a counterclaim in response, seeking attorney fees and $1 in damages.

Paltrow has countered that he was actually the culprit in the collision, is overstating his injuries, and trying to exploit her celebrity and wealth. In addition to her acting career, she is also the founder and CEO of the high-end wellness company, goop.
In court filings, her attorneys deny Sanderson’s claims and allege that he was the one who crashed into her — a collision in which she sustained a “full body blow.” Her counterclaim alleges that members of Paltrow’s group checked on Sanderson, who assured them he was fine. It casts doubt on his motive and claims of injury, noting that before the incident, he had 15 documented medical conditions.

“He demanded Ms. Paltrow pay him millions. If she did not pay, she would face negative publicity resulting from his allegations,” her attorneys wrote in a 2019 court filing.

The trial in Park City is slated to last longer than a week.

Entertainment

Rafa Nadal out of top 10 for first time since 2005

Rafa Nadal’s absence from Indian Wells saw the 22-times Grand Slam champion slip out of the top 10 for the first time since 2005 on Monday but the Spaniard will still be the “man to beat” at the French Open if he can get back to full fitness.
Nadal was forced to skip the Masters 1000 event in California, where he reached the final last year, as he continues his recovery from a hip issue that ended his Australian Open title defense in the second round in January.

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Unable to defend the 600 points from Indian Wells resulted in Nadal dropping four places to 13th in the rankings, ending his record 912-week stay inside the top 10, which began when current number one Carlos Alcaraz was not even two years old.
However, with Nadal preparing to return to action at the Monte Carlo Masters next month ahead of the French Open, which he has won 14 times in his career, his time outside the top 10 might be short.
World number four Casper Ruud, who lost to Nadal in the Roland Garros final last year, said he would not be shocked to see the 36-year-old lift the trophy once again.
“It wouldn’t surprise me because he’ll probably use these weeks and these months, as he’s preparing for exactly Roland Garros,” Ruud told Eurosport as part of the ‘Ruud Talk’ series.
“It doesn’t matter if he loses in Monte Carlo or Rome or Madrid. The only thing that’s probably on his mind these days is just to be fit, be healthy, and be ready for Roland Garros.”
Tennis lost two of its greats when Serena Williams and Roger Federer bowed out of the sport last year, but Nadal and rival Novak Djokovic are still soldiering on.
Djokovic, who turns 36 in May, has shown few signs of slowing down and drew level with Nadal on 22 Grand Slams by winning the Australian Open.
“For the whole tennis world it would be nice to see one last showdown at Roland Garros,” former US Open champion Dominic Thiem said, adding that Djokovic would be favorite to win the remaining Grand Slams this year.
“The only tournament is Roland Garros: if Rafa is fit there, it’s exactly the opposite. He’s the man to beat when he won the tournament 14 times, it’s crazy.”

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