Collins Dictionary word of the year revealed to be guttural howl “AAARRRGGGHHH!”

The gutteral yell of despair “AAARRRGGGHHH!” has been declared the word of the year for 2020 by Collins Dictionary, after a sharp rise in its usage during the pandemic.

It “encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people”, a spokesperson for Collins told the press this morning.

Researchers registered more than 25,000,000 usages of “AARRGGHH!!!” during 2020, up from just 750,000 last year, and beating the 20,000,000 registered uses of “AAARRRGGGHHH!” in 2016.

Other pandemic-linked terms on the 10-strong list include “Covidiots”, “Breaking News? Oh shit, what now”, and “FML”.

Researcher Simon Williams, who led the study, told us, “There sure were a lot of utterances of dismay and or despair in usage by millions of people across the globe, but “AAARRRGGGHHH!” just clinched it over “Oh for f***’s sake”, mainly because it can be expressed so clearly in any language.

“Even some animals were reported to be using it, which is a first for us.”

He went on, “Strangely though, of the 25 million uses of “AAARRRGGGHHH!” that were recorded, five million of those were noted in the White House last week alone.”

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