(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Brexit. Bigly. Fiscal cliff. Hipster antitrust. You can learn a lot about the decade we just got through by recalling the language we used—invented, repurposed, or plucked from obscurity—to describe it. So, here are 58 words and phrases, mostly business-related, that define 2010-2019. They’re in chronological order of their peak in popularity, according to Google Trends.
With apologies to Barbra Streisand (and Merriam-Webster, which originated this pun), here is ... The Way We Word.Tea Party April 2010peak oilApril 2010Oil production didn’t peak; this phrase did.double-dip recession August 2010quantitative easingNovember 2010TL;DRJanuary 2011too long; didn’t readcov-liteMarch 2011Adjective for loans with few covenants to protect lenders.cloud computingMarch 2011too big to failMay 2011Month of the release of the HBO film of that name.Arab SpringOctober 2011OccupyOctober 2011As in, “Occupy Wall Street.”chronic traumatic encephalopathyMay 2012austerityMay 2012green washingSeptember 2012fiscal cliffDecember 2012identity theftFebruary 2013ObamacareOctober 2013doom loopNovember 2013The fatal interdependence of indebted banks and indebted governments.selfieMarch 2014 EbolaOctober 2014freemiumNovember 2014swipe leftFebruary 2015Huge spike for swipe left but not for swipe right. Why?range anxietyMarch 2015The fear that an electric car will run out of juice.secular stagnationApril 2015Depression-era term revived by Harvard economist Larry Summers.reshoringApril 2015GrexitJuly 2015Greek exit from the euro zone, which didn’t happen.zero lower boundApril 2016The theory that interest rates can’t go negative.binge-watchingMay 2016 BrexitJune 2016British exit from the European Union, which will happen.deplorablesSeptember 2016biglyOctober 2016Trump actually said “big league,” but bigly is so much more Trumpian.Make America Great AgainNovember 20161 PercentNovember 2016But “1%” is trendless.deaths of despairMarch 2017DreamersSeptember 2017 Spiked in the U.S., where it refers to people addressed in the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.blockchainDecember 2017tweetstormDecember 2017Tide Pod ChallengeJanuary 2018Teens daring each other to eat detergent.cryptoJanuary 2018active-shooter drillFebruary 2018gender-fluidJuly 2018Operation Car WashSeptember 2018The South American corruption scandal.fake newsOctober 2018Me TooOctober 2018yellow vestDecember 2018France’s protest movement.hipster antitrustJanuary 2019Green New DealFebruary 2019ghostingFebruary 2019Leaving a relationship, or a job, without saying goodbye.Modern Monetary TheoryMarch 2019Planet BMarch 2019As in the environmental message, “There is no Planet B.”“Belt and Road” initiativeApril 2019microinfluencerApril 2019CBDMay 2019Cannabidiol, a derivative of marijuana.theyJune 2019Such a common word that there was no sharp spike when it began to catch on as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. Same story with “woke,” which peaked in November 20195GJune 2019deep fakeJuly 2019JapanificationAugust 2019gig economySeptember 2019coworking spaceSeptember 2019
To contact the columnist of this story: Peter Coy in New York at pcoy3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Eric Gelman at egelman3@bloomberg.net
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