What single word encompasses the suspense, dismay, and surprises of 2022?

Merriam-Webster makes its choice based in part on what people look up the most. This year it’s gaslighting: “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage.” The runners-up are oligarch, omicron, codify, LGBTQIA, sentient, loamy, raid, and queen consort. There’s a story behind each word, especially loamy.

For Collins dictionaries in Great Britain, it’s permacrisis: “one of several words Collins highlights that relate to ongoing crises the UK and the world have faced and continue to face, including political instability, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and the cost-of-living crisis.” Colins also considered Kyiv, Partygate, splooting, warm bank, Carolean, lawfare, quiet quitting, sportswashing, and vibe state. Not all the words, though, refer to crises.

Also in Great Britain, goblin mode is the Oxford University Press 2022 word of the year, chosen by a popular vote. It means “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.” Apparently, that’s a popular response in the UK to its permacrisis. In the running were metaverse and #IstandWith (as in #IstandWithUkraine).

Because I speak Spanish, I’m interested in the palabra del año declared by FundéuRAE, an arm of the Spanish Royal Academy. This year it’s inteligencia artificial (artificial intelligence) because of the ethical implications in the development of machine intelligence. “Questions about when and how this technology might be able to replace certain kinds of professional work has been one of the great debates of the year 2022.”

The other choices were apocalipsis (apocalypse), criptomoneda (cryptocurrency), diversidad (diversity), ecocidio (ecocide), gasoducto (gas pipeline), gigafactoría (gigafactory), gripalizar (to treat like the flu, referring to covid-19), inflación (inflation), sexdopaje (chemsex), topar (to create an upper price limit, such as for gasoline), and Ucraniano (Ukranian). It’s been a tough year in Spain, too.

But there’s more year-end excitement! Time’s Person of the Year is Volodymyr Zelensky. I think he earned it simply by surviving.

Publishers Weekly has its People of the Year: The Defenders. These are “the librarians, booksellers, authors, publishers, and allies standing tall in the face of an unprecedented attack on the freedom to read.” As a writer, I second that nomination.

Finally, Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2023 will be Viva Magenta, which I would call very dark pink, but they call “brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.” Indeed, Viva Magenta “galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength.” That’s extraordinary power.

An aphorism, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a terse formulation of a truth or sentiment.” I don’t promise that any of the following express true or worthy sentiments, but they are terse. Let’s prepare for the year 2023 with these nuggets of wisdom:

• It is easier to forgive an enemy than forgive a friend.

• Life sends endless gifts of love to Death, who keeps them forever.

• According to the rain, floods are good and just.

• It is easier to fool someone than convince them that they have been fooled.        

• A liar should have an outstanding memory.

• You cannot wake someone pretending to be asleep.

• Stupidity is a terrible opponent to wrestle.

I was ten years old when Santa forgot me. I got up on Christmas morning and rushed down to the tree to see what he had left.

Of course I knew that Santa didn’t exist — or rather, I knew that Mom and Dad were Santa. But since I had a little brother and sister, the magical Santa still came to our house.

I found only one box for me under the tree, which meant it would be especially good. Instead, it was just a hat and scarf set, and not a very good hat and scarf set, or even a color I liked. I felt disappointed and most of all bewildered. For the benefit of the little ones, I acted happy, but I wasn’t.

Soon my mother called me aside and apologized. In the confusion of the holiday, she and Dad had miscounted gifts and realized late the night before that they had nothing for me from Santa, so Dad ran out and got something quick. She hoped I understood, and I did, I really did. Those two little ones sowed constant confusion. I imagined Dad going to the only place open on late Christmas Eve night, which in those days was probably a gas station, and given the limited merchandise, he had made a good choice.

And yet I had to hide tears. I wasn’t unhappy with my parents. I genuinely appreciated the effort. I wore the hat and scarf, and they were warm.

What hurt me was the proof of something I had already suspected but hadn’t wanted to believe: the world had no magic, no guarantees. It was full of human beings who made mistakes. An innocently botched Christmas gift was trifling, but devastating mistakes were possible, too. Given time — and a ten-year-old has lots of time ahead of her — devastating mistakes would happen. I got my proof that Christmas morning.

Sometimes Santa simply forgets.

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I hurried to buy and read this book on the recommendation of a well-known translator (well-known to other translators, that is), and I loved it. I’ve nominated it for a Nebula Award.

As the author carefully points out in a note at the beginning of the novel, this is a fantasy based on historical fact. If you’ve heard of the Opium Wars between China and Great Britain, then you know that it was a dismal time in history for the people subjected to imperialism. Meanwhile, back in Britain, the first industrial revolution meant exploitation, deepening poverty, and misery for the working class.

The author is also a translator, like me, and the book’s magic system turns translation into a weapon for imperialism and economic abuse — an unsettling idea, carefully constructed.

Babel follows the life of novice translator Robin Swift (we never learn his real name) as he discovers his place as a cog in the machine that turns his very thoughts into weapons and will cost him his dignity, what little love he is able to find, and the lives of the people he loves until all that remains is the necessity of violence.

View all my reviews

“To Find a Dress” — This story began as Spanish class assignment to write about the saying, “El hábito no hace al monje,” or “Clothes don’t make the man.” On that same day, I read a Wall Street Journal article about the Washington, DC, Hash House Harriers Red Dress Run, and I decided that maybe you are what you wear. Published in 2003.

Amadis of Gaul, Chapter IX — An excerpt from a medieval novel that I translated. This is how people at the time imagined a dramatic, heroic joust.

“Dogs in Heaven” — Flash fiction with cute animals.

New in Articles:

The First Seven Chicons: A History of Ambition, Tradition, and Entertainment — Each year, the science fiction community organizes an event called a “worldcon.” The first one started sort of by accident. The second one, held in Chicago in 1940, made it into an annual event. This report was written for the Chicon 8 Souvenir Book.

Chicon 8: convention review — The 80th Worldcon went well, but times are changing.

Speculative Fiction: the future happens everywhere — Science fiction translators and some publishers want to make the genre reflect its world-wide authorship. This article was written for the Spring-Summer 2022 edition of The Source, the journal of the Literary Division of the American Translators Association.

Parallel Beauty — What set the standards for beautiful prose in English? The King James Bible, for one thing.