The 2020 Word of the Year contenders were more numerous than candidates on the first California gubernatorial ballot in 2006. They spanned sometimes intersecting categories that included politics, technology, Zoom, social movements and, of course, the COVID-19 virus: “dumpster fire,” “Blursday,” “the Rona” and her sisters “Miss Rona” and “Aunt Rona,” “you’re muted,” “kraken.”
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Dictionary lookups and frequency of use rather than creativity power the choice of Word of the Year, and so, a couple of comparatively ordinary choices won the honor. Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com selected “pandemic,” and the Oxford English Dictionary, gobsmacked by the unprecedented cats-and-dogs rain of new words and sudden popularity of common ones, picked “unprecedented.” You can download the report at the link if you regularly attend to couching your words as well as attending to vacuuming the couch after the beagle’s jumped off.
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Last week’s The Scratching Post adoption section featured three pet videos instead of the usual four. A shelter cat named Panda was slated to be one of the stars he’s an orange kitty with a mass on the bridge of his nose that squashed his big face, particularly the eyes, into an odd but endearing configuration. Here’s the video starring this singular fellow that Long Beach Animal Care Services volunteer Susan and I had made.
Panda shows his cuddle to volunteer Susan. Video by Kate Karp
There was something about Panda that got to everyone at the shelter. If I had another room in my house, I’d have taken him home we figured that there were tender hearts that would beat the same way, and someone would come for him. On the day before the article was posted, the results of a biopsy on his nose revealed that Panda has a malignant tumor that shelter veterinarians said was too large and too advanced for a good prognosis.