For a snapshot of our world each year there’s no need to look further than the dictionaries’ choices of Word of the Year.

In the Irish and UK context, some of the seismic events of recent years are reflected in the words chosen by the major dictionaries for 2016 (the first year of Brexit and Trump) and 2020 (the first year of the Covid crisis). For 2016 and 2020:

Collins Dictionary chose 'Brexit' and 'lockdown'
Oxford English Dictionary chose 'post-truth' and 'lockdown'
Merriam-Webster Dictionary chose 'surreal' and 'pandemic'.

For 2022, the choices are again intriguing: Collins chose ‘permacrisis’, Oxford ‘goblin mode’ and Merriam-Webster ‘gaslighting’.

These are three relatively new terms invented to respond to modern conditions and events. ‘Goblin mode’, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations’, first appeared around 2009. ‘Gaslighting’ is even more recent, having been around for about a decade, while ‘permacrisis’ is a brand new word, believed to have first appeared in 2022.