Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, 11/17/2020
Over the weekend, I posed the following question to my friends on one of my social media accounts: “Can we agree to retire the word ‘unprecedented’ at the end of 2020?”
At the time, I was watching the news, and I groaned as the anchor used this word to describe something — I don’t even remember now what it was — maybe Trump’s refusal to concede? Or the number of new COVID infections? Our inability to keep each other safe during a pandemic?
All I remember now is the thought that went through my head: “This word no longer has meaning.”
The online version of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary reports that “unprecedented” is an adjective meaning “having no precedent; novel; unexampled.” Similar to the word “unique,” “unprecedented” is intended to be used sparingly. After all, once an unprecedented thing happens, there is precedent.
To find out if I was just imagining the increased use of this expression, I did a not-very-scientific experiment. I searched for the word “unprecedented” in my work email from Jan. 1, 2020 through Nov. 15, 2020. I filtered out headline updates from The New York Times and other messages that were not associated with my job. The result was that the word “unprecedented” appeared in 177 work-related email messages that I received.
Then I did a similar search for the entirety of 2019, which resulted in a mere 11 messages. In other words, the word “unprecedented” was used 16 times more frequently in 2020 than in the previous year — at least as far as my email is concerned.
The word appeared in an average of 18 emails per month. The highest frequency of its appearance was in March (36 messages) and April (43 messages). This correlates with the first surge of coronavirus cases in the United States, along with campus closures due to the pandemic.
It was unprecedented to send students home and ask all faculty and the majority of staff to work remotely to finish up the academic year. It was unprecedented for us to rethink the way we did most things so that we could stay away from each other and keep each other safe.
However, the coronavirus was not the only thing that made 2020 unusual. The term “unprecedented” has been used to describe so many things. Here is a sampling of them:
?Hospital ICUs filled to capacity and a shortage of ventilators
?Lack of PPE for first responders, nurses reused masks for days
?Sharp spike in job losses
?Close to 250,000 deaths of U.S. residents from COVID-19
?Wildfires raged across Australia and later the West Coast of the U.S.
?Ongoing protests for Black Lives Matter in the wake of George Floyd’s murder
?Increasing visibility and audacity of white supremacists in the U.S., including a plot to kidnap a sitting governor
?Toilet paper, cleaning and baking supply shortages (seriously?)
?Students of all ages expected to learn remotely
?A sitting U.S. president lying about the security of our elections
?Confirmation of a Supreme Court justice during an active presidential election
?An African American and South Asian American woman elected as vice president
?The U.S. president’s unwillingness to concede the presidential race
There are certainly events missing from this list that I’ve forgotten or that others would consider more “unprecedented” than these.
While I’m hoping 2021 will be a better year for the human race, there are some things that started in 2020 that I hope we can use to set new precedents. For example, people have been spending more time outside. In addition to common pursuits like walking, hiking and biking, I’ve enjoyed how activities such as dining and exercise classes continued to take place outdoors even into the cooler months. Doing yoga outside while watching the sunset was a highlight of the fall.
Looking after our neighbors is another habit that I hope will continue. Several communities set up official mutual aid groups to help each other. There were even more unofficial kindnesses happening among neighbors. People in my neighborhood seem more willing to stop to say hello and get to know each other.
Spending more time at home with family has had its high and low points. In my house, it’s been difficult for my teens to spend so much time on screens doing their schoolwork, and our house is too small for us to each have an office space. That said, I appreciate being able to work from my couch with my dog snuggled beside me. I recognize that I am one of the lucky ones who has a job when so many people are out of work.
Once we are beyond 2020, when we have some time and distance from it, we’ll be able to see more clearly what happened, how we got to this place — both the bad and the good, and how that set the precedent for the future.
