Word of the Year 2019

The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression shown through usage evidence to reflect the ethos,
mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.
The Oxford Word of the Year 2019 is climate emergency.
Climate emergency is defined as ‘a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate
change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it.’

Analysis of language data collected in the Oxford Corpus shows the rapid rise of climate emergency from
relative obscurity to becoming one of the most prominent – and prominently debated – terms of 2019.

In 2018, climate did not feature in the top words typically used to modify emergency, instead the top types of
emergencies people wrote about were health, hospital, and family emergencies. These suggest acute situations
of danger at a very personal level, often relating to the health of an individual. Emergency also frequently
occurs, as in the phrase state of emergency to indicate a legal declaration of an acute situation at a
jurisdictional level. But with climate emergency, we see something new, an extension of emergency to the
global level, transcending these more typical uses.

In 2019, climate emergency surpassed all of those other types of emergency to become the most written about
emergency by a huge margin, with over three times the usage frequency of health, the second-ranking word.

© David Ripley, InThinking

http://www.thinkib.net/englishb
‘Climate emergency’ - Use in context

One high profile example of this language development is the changes made by The Guardian in its
reporting of environmental news in May. The newspaper stated that instead of climate change, its
preferred terms are ‘climate emergency, crisis, or breakdown’ to describe the broader impact of climate
change. The move prompted other media outlets to review and update their own policies and approaches
to reporting on the climate. 5
The Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner, who outlined the terminology changes, said: ‘We
want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with
readers on this very important issue. The phrase “climate change”, for example, sounds rather
passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.’
Language choice in scientific reporting on climate science has been influential in this shift during 10 2019.
With the publication of careful scientific analyses presenting the various consequences for the world’s
communities should people fail to take action – see the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s
special report Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, for example – an increasing number of climate scientists have
urged their peers to ‘tell it like it is’ when communicating their research.
A recent article published in the journal BioScience and signed by 11,258 scientists from 153 15 countries
argued that ‘scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat’, and
presented their research to declare ‘clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate
emergency.’
Similar action has been taken in political circles this year, with a growing number of local and national
jurisdictions officially declaring a state of climate emergency. On 28 April 2019, Scottish 20 First
Minister Nicola Sturgeon became the first to declare a national climate emergency on behalf
of the Scottish government in a party conference address. This was swiftly followed by official
declarations from the UK, Portugal, Canada, France, and Argentina among others. Such a move has been
likened to putting a country on ‘war footing’, a demonstration of commitment to the emergency by
putting climate action at the centre of governmental policy. 25

https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2019/#woty-2019-shortlist

© David Ripley, InThinking

http://www.thinkib.net/englishb
 Overall understanding Answer the following questions.

1. Which phrase indicates the main reason why The Guardian thought ‘climate emergency’ was the
more appropriate term to use to describe the current situation of the environment?

● "scientifically precise"

2. Which phrase indicates why The Guardian thought ‘climate change’ was less

appropriate?

● "rather passive and gentle "

Detailed understanding Choose the correct answer.

3. The term “high profile” (l.1) means that the example is
A very exaggerated
B well known
C much respected
D hard to understand

4. The word “catastrophe” (l.9) suggests that what is happening to the climate

A will be a challenge
B is coming soon
C will change everything
D will be very bad

5. The word “unequivocally” (l.17) means that scientists should

A leave no room for doubt

B take a political position
C argue their case
D say they all agree

6. The word “jurisdictions” (l.19) means

A pressure groups
B political parties
 C government institutions
D groups of researchers

© David Ripley, InThinking

http://www.thinkib.net/englishb

The Word of the Year Shortlist - Match the definitions identified by letters with the words they
define, listed below. Write the appropriate identifying letter in the space provided.

A Actions taken by an individual, organization, or government to reduce or counteract the emission

of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, in order to limit the effect of global warming on the
earth’s climate
B A situation characterized by the threat of highly dangerous, irreversible changes to the global
climate
C The rejection of the proposition that climate change caused by human activity is occurring or that
it constitutes a significant threat to human welfare and civilisation
D Extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and
climate change
E Destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action
F The fact or process of a species, family, or other group of animals or plants becoming extinct
G A reluctance to travel by air, or discomfort at doing so, because of the damaging emission of
greenhouse gases and other pollutants by aircraft
H A term adopted in place of ‘global warming’ to convey the seriousness of changes in the climate
caused by human activity and the urgent need to address it
I A target of completely negating the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, to be
achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere
J (Of food or a diet) consisting largely of vegetables, grains, pulses, or other foods derived from
plants, rather than animal products

.F. Extinction
.H. Global heating
.C. Climate crisis Correct answer B
.J. Plant-based
.B. Climate denial Correct answer C
.E. Ecocide
.I. Net-zero
.G. Flight shame
.D. Eco-anxiety
.A. Climate action
© David Ripley, InThinking
http://www.thinkib.net/englishb