Mixed Shots

A year In Words

There’s no single word that can define 2020, even Oxford English Dictionary (OED) couldn’t settle for one. And so, OED’s lexicographers chose multiple “Words of the Year” from a corpus of more than 11 billion found in web-based news, blogs and other text sources that reprise the “seismic shifts in language data and precipitous frequency rises in new coinage” over the past 12 months. Your guess is as good as ours—most of the chosen words are pandemic-related: coronavirus, lockdown, circuit-breaker, support bubbles, keyworkers, furlough, face masks, remote, remotely, on mute, unmute, workation, staycation etc. Can’t help adding our own Covided to the list!

This Can Make You Dizzy

How to pop open a soda or beer bottle without an opener? The ways are many, but this one stands out: position the lid on the edge of a table, hit down on the cap with your head while gently pulling the bottle down. Now how many can you open in a minute? Prabhakar Reddy, a martial arts expert in Andhra Pradesh’s Nellore uncapped 68 bottles in 60 seconds to write his name in the Guinness World Records 2020. He broke the previous world record by Pakistan’s Muhammad Rashid Naseem. Disclaimer: please don’t try this at home.

$3K Tip For A Beer

A customer in Cleveland, US, left a $3,000 (Rs 223,696) tip for a single beer as a restaurant voluntarily closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The man walked in, ordered the beer and asked for the bill, which came to $7.02 (Rs 519). Nighttown owner Brendan Ring wrote on Facebook that the man wished him well and told him to share the tip with the four employees. As the man walked out, Ring looked down at the tip and “ran after him and he said no mistake we will see you when you reopen!” Ring said he would not post the customer’s name because he thinks the man wouldn’t want that.

The Bullet, Recycled

If there’s anything like a brass-bottomed guarantee, this could suit one. Maharashtra Police have contracted a private contractor to repurpose spent brass bullet cartridges into bespoke products: nameplates for officers, honour boards, lectern stands, seals, stamps, medals and trophies. The cops have a pile of cartridge shells, collected from the firing ranges and waiting to be upcycled. The company hired for the “repurpose”—Parik Sales Corporation of Haryana—will melt the scrap brass in crucibles, remove impurities like gunpowder residue, and set the metal into ingots before rolling it into sheets, which can then be shaped into artifacts.

Stress Bares Its Teeth

The pandemic has left many of us gritting our teeth. A study, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, says the COVID-19 lockdown recorded a spike in facial and jaw pain, jaw-clenching during the day and teeth-grinding at night. Women suffered more, and those between 35 and 55 years suffered the most. The Tel Aviv University research says orofacial pain is a symptom of stress and anxiety. Teeth-chattering, isn’t it?

Brevis

Illustrations: Saahil, Text curated by Alka Gupta