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May 30, 2023
This week’s theme
Coined words

This week’s words
rusticle
infodemic
interrobang
tulgey
nobodaddy

infodemic
How to flatten the infodemic curve

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

infodemic

PRONUNCIATION:
(in-fuh/foh-DEM-ik)

MEANING:
noun: A glut of mostly unreliable, rapidly spreading information relating to an event, crisis, disease, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:
A blend of information + epidemic, coined by the author and columnist David J. Rothkopf in a Washington Post column about the SARS epidemic. Earliest documented use: 2003.

USAGE:
“Anke Richter says: ‘But we didn’t really see that the infodemic did creep in, because you can’t stop that with MIQ at the border.’”
Kirsty Johnston; The “Cult-Like” Features of Vax Misinformation; Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand); Mar 17, 2022.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Your love to me was like an unread book. -Countee Cullen, poet, novelist, and playwright (30 May 1903-1946)

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