Unprecedented Times and Innovation
- PDF / 108,039 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 63 Downloads / 220 Views
Unprecedented Times and Innovation Claire Major 1 Accepted: 12 October 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the lives of people around the world. The continued threat of the disease has led to ongoing changes and challenges, requiring us to quickly adapt to different ways of working, learning, and connecting with each other. The virus has, simply put, disrupted the status quo, and it has been unlike anything we’ve experienced in modern times. Many of us have received emails, dozens of them, from our institutions, from every company we’ve ever interacted with (and some we haven’t), and even from friends and family that begin with the proclamation that we are living in “unprecedented times.” The term is not a particularly poetic one, but it has suddenly become so common that it is beginning to border on cliché. I’ve used the term myself, and I feel fairly confident that I’m not alone in falling back on a cliché to express what seems, for the most part, inexpressible. While cliché may be thought of something that is overused or unoriginal, it may also be considered a kind of linguistic shorthand intended to save time when we refer to thoughts and experiences so common that they become almost elemental to our shared understanding. So, what exactly are we saying when we use this phrase? What common human experience are we trying to communicate? Merriam-Webster documents the first use of the term “unprecedented times” around 1795. Although this term has been around for two centuries, its use has increased over time. Along the way, there have been three distinct usage peaks. According to a Google nGram (a tool that allows you to see how words and phrases have been used over time based on their occurrence in the over 30 million print books that Google has scanned), the first peak occurred in 1814/15. This peak coincided with the end of the Napoleonic wars and the end of the War of 1812; it also corresponded with the beginning of the Era of Good Feelings in the United States. The second peak occurred in 1818/1819, contemporaneous with the flu pandemic and the end of World War I and just prior to the roaring 20s and developments in Women’s Suffrage. And the most recent peak, before now, was in 1945, marking the end of WWII and the founding of the United Nations. Thus, while increased usage of the term has coincided with some decidedly challenging times in our history, the peaks also reflect new beginnings of prosperity, growth, and innovation.
* Claire Major [email protected]
1
Higher Education Administration, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
Innovative Higher Education
What do we mean by “unprecedented times” in our current usage? The word “unprecedented” is formed from the noun “precedent,” which refers to something done or said that is used as an example to be followed in the future. The term comprises the prefix “un,” which means “not,” the noun “precedent,” and the suffix “ed,” which means “having.” It is an adjective that means “having no precedent,
Data Loading...
