Surreal and Post-Truth Words of the Year 2016

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“SURREAL” is the word for 2016 in the USA and Canada according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary and I cannot think of a better one. I feel like I am walking in a Salvador Dali painting and I just can’t wake up.

Surreal = Unreal, bizarre, unusual, weird, strange, freakish, unearthly, uncanny, dreamlike.

 The Oxford Dictionary declared “POST-TRUTH” as the word of the year 2016.

Post-Truth = relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

Editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to last year. The spike in usage, it said, is “in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States.”

Yes, that pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?

“We first saw the frequency really spike this year in June with buzz over the Brexit vote and Donald Trump securing the Republican presidential nomination. Given that usage of the term hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, I wouldn’t be surprised if post-truth becomes one of the defining words of our time,” predicted Oxford Dictionaries President Casper Grathwohl.

I am relieved. I am not the only one who feels she is trapped in a weird dream. Sadly, now I know I am not dreaming. Someone has pinched me, and nothing happened.

Cowardly attacks by religious extremists killed many innocent people. 80 in Niece, 44 in Istanbul, 32 in Brussels, 49 in Orlando, and yesterday 11 in Berlin. All killed in a name of a God who must be crying.

Many innocent lives taken by violent crimes. The world is watching a brutal war in Syria, and we continue to watch refugees drown in their attempt to survive the horror.

2016 dished out a lot of misery for too many.  There is no sugarcoating. Hurricanes and floodings, earthquakes and wildfires.

First Brexit, then Trump. Many events made people look up the word surreal, but according to Merriam-Webster, the highest spike in look-ups came the day after Donald Trump’s election.

Yes, indeed our world is surreal.

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10 thoughts on “Surreal and Post-Truth Words of the Year 2016”

  1. Instead of evolving towards developing a more inclusive and mature civilization , we are digressing towards a more primitive and selfish way of existing. I just hope this is another phase in our human history that passes quick enough for my children to see some improvement.

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  2. I don’t mean to candy coat the situation, but the new Merriam-Webster word for 1981 was “Supply Side.” One year later it was in disrepute. Then Metrosexual had a very short life as well. We cannot know what the far right’s fate is; it could fall apart for failure to deliver. So far, Trump has only to posture.

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  3. Yes, I do get the sense that we as a species are on the road to destruction and maybe have been for awhile now, but things are accelerating with Trump, Brexit and ISIS. We are just a too harmful species, to the planet, to the creatures on it, and to fellow humans. Pure selfishness and destruction is not evolutionarily adaptive for any species.

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    • You are very wise woman my friend. I feel the same way. I think we are running head first into WWIII. There are more elections in Europe coming up and I fear that people will vote right-wing extremists in. 80 years ago it was Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.
      I don’t think we are capable to live in peace. Like little children in the sandbox, we don’t want to share. “This is mine,” we cry and hit anybody who wants what we have.

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