2016's Word of The Year MUST be: Courage

As 2015 ends and I review my personal accomplishments for the year, I can boast that I am not only familiar with the Oxford Dictionary 2015 Word/Term Of The Year, I also know 6 of the 8 on the shortlist. In hindsight, this feat wasn’t too hard to achieve. You’d have to be a true Cro-Magnon to NOT know what a “pictograph” or "emoji" is by now. The good peeps of Oxford even provided some analytics about global emoji usage to justify making pictograph the most impactful word from this past year. (In fact, Kim Kardashian kashed in on this research by launching her own line of emojis recently. And she made a LOT of money doing it. However, I have just broken my own heart by admitting that I know this.)

As for the runners-up, I can also brag that I used the term “on fleek” in an Instagram post a few months ago, to communicate how wicked hawt I was looking that day. The word “refugee” deserved to be a finalist, considering that dozens of countries worldwide are grappling with its embodiment. And I had only recently read something about the term “Brexit,” which refers to the possibility that the United Kingdom (Great Britain) might exit the European Union.

However, I must confess I did not know what a "lumbersexual" was. So sue me.

But frankly, I’m a bit dunzo with all the media outlets being so thirsty trying to publish features or lists related to the latest urban/youth slang. This could be because compared to people who invent and perpetuate these terms, I am old as hell. But having lived half my life in the 20th Century—and hoping to score at least another 3 decades in this one—I’m hereby suggesting that Oxford needs to get ghost with the pretension and announce on January 1st that next year’s word will be:

“Courage.” 365, 24/7. And definitely NOT spelled with a K.

And they should be sure to stress that the definition is retro, straight up OG, and direct from back in the DIZ-zay. People shouldn’t strain their brains trying to figure out if it has been adapted to convey some new type of party drug or Kardashian-Konnected poor life choice. To get up out of bed every day for the rest of this planet’s existence and make the right decisions about how to survive til sundown, or at least not mess things up, every man, woman and child on this planet needs to learn it and earn it.

At this point, I’ma keep it one hunnert and admit I spend way too much time online catching feelings about world events. But let me explain why courage is mandatory for the human race to keep existing. When I think of the South Sudanese woman standing in the knee-high sewage and rainwater of an IDP camp tent, forced to constantly carry her hungry children on her hips and back for fear they will drown at her feet, I think of courage.

When I think of a 14 year old Syrian girl whose family has walked for months now trying to escape the war, and who every 28 days endures the trauma of unfettered bleeding but has nothing to stop the flow, but who must keep walking anyway while trying to maintain her dignity, I think of courage.

When I think of the American family with several members battling debilitating health problems, and one parent may have lost a job, and they don’t know how they’ll be able to keep a roof over their heads, I think of courage.

When I think of Irqa Mohamed, the Muslim student on a London bus earlier this month who was spat on and called a terrorist while onlookers laughed, but who maintained her dignity while facing a potential lynching, I think of courage.

When I think of the parents of 43 Mexican students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College who still have not gotten justice for their murdered children, or the hundreds of Nigerian mothers who must live every minute of every tortured day imagining their kidnapped daughters being raped, brutalized or by this point dead, but they still haven’t given up hope or killed themselves or tried to seek revenge, I think of courage.

When I think of the Kenyan Muslim bus passengers in the country's Northeast region last week who, during an ambush by suspected Islamic extremists, protected their Christian fellow passengers by telling the terrorists they would have to kill them all, I think of courage and my heart shouts, "Hallelujah!"

And when I think of the possibility that Donald Trump could represent America on the global stage after November 8, I know I need HELLA courage. Specifically, the courage to risk returning to live in the US before election results are certified. Without professing allegiance to any political party, I can earnestly opine from the bottom of my heart that I believe America will be toast under a President Trump.

TOAST, people.

But I digress. Let me wind down by providing this inspiring link to “215 Courage Related Quotes” that may help convince the Oxford folks to quit flossing for 2016 and get back to basics.

https://theboldlife.com/2014/10/215-courage-quotes-to-inspire-you-to-take-action/

I've bookmarked this page, and plan to refer to it often next year. After all, courage never goes out of style. 15 year old Zaevion Dobson, who threw himself in front of 3 girls in Knoxville, Tennessee on December 18th to shield them from a hail of bullets, showed the world that courage isn’t just for Iraqi war veterans or crusading grandmas. Courage is as young as a baby attempting her first steps. It is MAD cool, and it has so much swagger, you don’t even have to say it to communicate it. You just have to bring it.

Or as the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie put it,

“We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ms. Jones is fully aware that most of the terms used in this post which were intended make it sound all New Millennium-ish and fresh to death are at LEAST 10 years old, owing to her low level of post-modern relevance. A sister is just trying to work with what she's got.

Oh, and “Happy New Year”--unless there’s some new way to say it that she also hasn’t heard about.