Coronavirus: The 2020 Children's Word of the Year
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What is the Children's Word of the Year?
The Children's Word of the Year has been announced and it is... coronavirus.
(No prizes if you could have guessed that!)
The word is decided each year by Oxford University Press (OUP) ahead of announcing the winners of the BBC's 500 Words competition.
They use the entries to figure out what young people are talking about the most.
Out of the 134,709 pieces sent in for the competition this year, 459 writers mentioned the word coronavirus!
The competition is closed but the winners for each category will be announced live on BBC Radio 2 on Friday 12 June.
Coronavirus was chosen as the 2020 Children's Word of the Year despite not being the most popular word used throughout the competition.
It was picked because it's a brand new word which was used across a range of different stories. OUP said its use shows the way young people are developing their own understanding of the world.
In previous years, the top words have been Brexit (2019), plastic (2018), Trump (2017) and refugee (2016).
Aside from coronavirus, there were lots of topics that were mentioned this year.
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Climate change was one of the biggies with more than 3,000 references to floods or flooding.
Other climate worries that were mentioned included bushfires and global warming.
The word 'Alexa' - a reference to smart-speaker - was used 1,578 times in stories this year.
And Minecraft overtook Fortnite in popularity with more than 900 mentions.
500 Words is a story-writing competition run by BBC Radio 2 alongside the Oxford University Press (OUP).
It is run every year for young people aged between five and 13. Stories can be about ANYTHING but they must be no more than 500 words long!
This year's winning stories will be read out by David Walliams, Dua Lipa and Jodie Whittaker.
And then there were certain names that came up again and again!
Here are the top ten non-fictional people that were mentioned in the stories:
Donald Trump - US President
Adolf Hitler - 20th century leader of the Nazi Party in Germany
Cristiano Ronaldo - Footballer
Lionel Messi - Footballer
David Walliams - Author and comedian
Cleopatra - Queen of Ancient Egypt
Queen Victoria - 19th century Queen of British Empire
Henry VIII - 16th century King of England
Boris Johnson - UK Prime Minister
Albert Einstein - Nobel Prize winning scientist
What do you think about coronavirus being the Children's Word of the Year? Would you have chosen a different word? Let us know in the comments below.
Let us know in the comments below.
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