Evening Standard Comment: For word of the year, ‘vax’ beats ‘lockdown’

“Vax” has been selected by lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary as 2021’s word of the year. And for good reason.

Vaccination has allowed millions of people in Britain and many more around the world to return to some form of normality, to see their family and friends, and for our economies to recover.

So in homage to our new word of the year, and as Covid booster jabs become available at walk-in sites in England from today, let’s get jabbed.

More than that, we must pressure richer nations to live up to their responsibilities and commitments in delivering more vaccines to poorer countries. This pandemic will not be over anywhere until it is over everywhere.

The OED’s word of the year does not always possess such positive connotations. See 2016’s “post-truth” or 2018’s “toxic”. “Vax” may not be the most poetic of new entrants but if nothing else, it is a marked improvement on Collins Dictionary’s 2020 offering, “lockdown”.