Australian National Dictionary Centre chooses 'iso' as word for 2020

The phrase thrown in front of hundreds of terms to describe the act of doing almost anything while in isolation has been chosen as the distinctively Aussie word of the year by the Australian National Dictionary Centre.

Each year the centre, based at the Australian National University, picks a word or expression which gained prominence in the Australian vernacular.

Iso baking, iso cut and iso fashion became so commonplace it seems strange the rest of the world was in isolation, not iso.

ANU researcher Mark Gwynn said among more than 400 pandemic-related terms the centre collected, iso stood out as a characteristically Australian abbreviation.

"Our fondness for abbreviating words in Australia, and a natural human inclination to make the unknown and scary familiar, quickly saw the descriptive term 'self-isolation' shortened to iso in March this year," Mr Gwynn said.

"Many of us found humour in language use as a way to cope with our changed working and social circumstances, so why not talk about a bad self-inflicted haircut as an iso cut, or the extra weight gained due to lack of exercise as iso kilos?"

Director Amanda Laugesen said it was interesting the last global pandemic had been labelled the Spanish flu, despite probably originating in the United States.

"We've now seen the coronavirus being referred to in a derogatory fashion as the China virus, not so much here but we've certainly seen that in the US," she said.

Ms Laugeson said unlike in 1918 the general population had quickly become familiar with the medical discourse of this pandemic.

"The other thing that is very different [from the Spanish flu] is that we have social media," she said.

Ms Laugeson said without online connectivity in the 1900s humourous terminology around the pandemic - as has occurred in 2020 - was unlikely to have developed.

She said the Oxford English Dictionary had talked about how while new words were created all the time the sheer volume this year had been quite amazing.

"This year we've seen so many new words being coined in relation to the coronavirus and the social effects that's had on us," Ms Laugeson said.

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