As I write this, Canberra is once again under threat from the Orroral Valley fire south of the city. This comes after a summer of intense and incredibly destructive bushfires and, for Canberra, endless days of smoke haze, followed by a damaging hailstorm. The coronavirus also dominates the daily newsfeeds as a global health emergency takes hold.

Our public language in the last months has been transformed by these crises. Here at the Australian National Dictionary Centre, we continually monitor the language, looking for new words and studying the various changes in our ways of speaking.