IT doesn’t have the same status as the Nobel Prize, but when the Oxford English Dictionary announces its Word of the Year, people pay a lot more attention. This year’s winner, if you can call it that, is vax: not a vacuum cleaner, but the medical process that offers immunity to disease. In other words, the subject that’s been foremost in almost all our minds these past 18 months.

As an Oxford English Dictionary spokesperson said, “No word better captures the atmosphere of the past year”. Its use has rocketed, from the relief of resuming relationships (hot vax summer) to red tape requirements (vax pass). We have those I think of as vaxxers, who wield the needle or urge getting jabbed, and anti-vaxxers who encourage others to keep their distance, Doubtless there are countless other permutations.

Nor was this the only word that showed a dramatic spike in usage last year. On its heels were furlough, Covid-19, and Black Lives Matter: all of them shorthand for the issues that dominated the headlines, and our attention, in a period of extraordinary turmoil and change.

Unlike some previous Words of the Year – selfie or photobomb – vax’s origins are venerable rather than new. From the Latin vacca, for cow – a nod to the dairy cows that inspired Edward Jenner’s revolutionary concept for guarding against smallpox – the term vaccine first appeared in print in 1799, shortly after Jenner’s breakthrough.

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It’s hardly surprising that ‘vaccine’ and its derivatives have been on the tip of our tongues, nor that last year’s word, as designated by Collins, another great dictionary empire, was ‘lockdown’. Whether we like it or not, since the start of 2020 society has been enrolled in an intensive language class.

Within a few weeks of the pandemic’s arrival, most of us were almost as familiar with medical terminology and technology as the authors of Gray’s Anatomy. We could describe the workings of a ventilator, understand procedures such as proning, spout acronyms like PPE, LFT and PCR as if we were rehearsing a script from Line of Duty, discuss the varying and waning efficacies of a slew of vaccines and fathom the mechanics of Big Pharma. Spin-off words, such as mascne (the acne caused by use of masks) or mask fishing (posting masked photos on a dating app) have mushroomed. In five years, they will probably have sunk without trace.

They say toddlers learn about eight new words a day, but the rest of us have been close behind. As an adult, you barely notice how effortlessly your vocabulary expands to accommodate a changing world. Far harder is jettisoning words or phrases that are out-dated and often mortifying, either for being so obviously from a previous century, or indicative of antediluvian attitudes.

Almost as embarrassing as being a linguistic dinosaur, however, is being too hip. The mine-field that is teenage slang is best left undisturbed by their elders. Tiptoe past, if you must, but never set foot therein. It might be useful to know that when your youngster uses 9 in a message, they’re indicating that a parent is in the vicinity, but while it’s one thing to know that the phrase ‘Netflix and chill’ means to hook up with someone (and not in an innocent way), it’s hardly a phrase to let drop over the family Sunday lunch. That way lies social Siberia.

The custodians of our ever-evolving language might not be heroic in the commonly understood way, but they should be considered key workers, even if it won’t get them ahead in the Tesco queue. Preserving the way we talk, write and communicate for future generations is essential. It is also a crucial tool for understanding ourselves, and what people are most concerned about.

Obviously the precise meaning of words matters, but this has never been more apparent than in a culture where truth is in danger of becoming a subjective concept. It’s no surprise, really, that ‘post-truth’ was one of the most-used words during the Trump presidency, as were ‘fake news’, ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘impeach’. Whether meanings evolve naturally, or are twisted by those wanting to manipulate popular opinion, accurate definitions become the bedrock of an open and fair society.

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Despite being raised in household with a dictionary in almost every room, I did not realise how important lexicographers were until I worked at Chambers the publishers. Even though I was a rookie reference editor, I was seated alongside the compilers of one of the world’s most respected dictionaries. A tome beloved by fans of cross-words and Scrabble, Chambers Dictionary was described by Melvyn Bragg as “like a baroque mansion in a city of faceless concrete”. Faceless these wordsmiths were not. Characterful, scholarly and sometimes gloriously eccentric would be my choice of adjectives.

Nor is lexicography for the faint-hearted. It requires the concentration of a key-hole surgeon, the literary concision of a haiku poet, and a linguist’s understanding of grammar, pronunciation and etymology. The famously dyspeptic Dr Samuel Johnson was the first celebrated lexicographer, and his labours were impressive. Nobody, however, has better exemplified the assiduity necessary for compiling a dictionary than James Murray. The father of the 12-volume Oxford English Dictionary, which was the successor to Johnson’s English dictionary, he worked doggedly on it for 35 years.

Murray came from Denholm, a village in the Borders close to where I live, which was also the home of another remarkable scholar, John Leyden. He mastered dozens of European and eastern languages. Murray, by comparison, could only speak a relative handful of European languages, including Catalan and Russian, although he also had a working knowledge of Aramaic, Arabic and Syriac, among others.

A photograph, from before 1910, shows him at work in his Scriptorium. Lined with pigeonholes for storing his definitions and derivations, it is a world away from the tidy Chambers office I remember, although his air of mental absorption is familiar. With flowing white beard, and wearing a dark hat and formal suit, he could pass for Professor Dumbledore. Yet archaic and fossilised though all this sounds, dictionary compilers could be said to work on the frontline of society. By discovering the words we most often use, they are helping to define us all.

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