New word suggestion - vaxed, vaxxed

[yelnats]

I (and my 3 siblings and great niece) tried vaxed, and vaxxed in the 7xm Excavated game, and it wasn't accepted. I looked it up in a couple of dictionaries and it's not there. Most of the internet search results appear to be about some US film linking vaccinations to autism (sci-fi?), but there are a fair number of newspaper articles from Aust, NZ, Singapore, UK, US, and  quotes even from Joe Biden using vaxxed.

Vaxxed or vexed: What will life for the unvaccinated be like in ...
https://www.straitstimes.com › life › vaxxed-or-vexed-

Office tensions rise between the vaccinated and unvaccinated
13 Sept 2021 — Dividing respondents into two camps — the "vexed vaxxed" and "unnerved
https://www.cnbc.com › 2021/09/13 › office-tensions-ri...

Vaxed, waxed, but definitely not relaxed - The Washington Post
30 July 2021 — Vaxxed, waxed, but definitely not relaxed. Story continues below
https://www.washingtonpost.com › style › 2021/07/29

Fully Vaxxed? Get Rewarded - ADF Consumer Centre
https://adfconsumer.gov.au › fully-vaxed-get-rewarded
28 July 2021 — “If you've been fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask,” the president declared. “It's vaxxed or masked.”.

All Vaxxed Up - Americast - BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk › BBC News › Americast

A new word - and common?

[Jacki]

Dear Yelnats, I don’t like words bastardised like this. I understand that words, like selfie, sometimes evolve very quickly, but it doesn’t mean I like it!

[yelnats]

I checked the Ngram for vaxed and vaxxed and it was surprising...

vaxed was used during Spanish flu time and vaxxed took off in Covid.

Our Australian PM uses "jabbed" and I can't bring myself to use jabbed!

[Jacki]

Yes I dislike jabbed too! Gladys said it a LOT!

[Alan W]

The Ngrams currently only go up to 2019, so there's no Covid effect visible. The spike in "Vaxxed" is from the name of an anti-vaccination movie, relating to the MMR vaccine, released in 2016.

[Alan W]

I'm adding vaxed, vaxes and vaxing. Also vaxx, vaxxes, vaxxed and vaxxing.

Wiktionary has vax, as both a noun, for vaccine, and a verb, for vaccinate. It also has the alternate form vaxx and its inflections.

The online Oxford has vax, as US informal for a vaccine or vaccination, but not as a verb, so it wouldn't recognise vaxed.

All these words have been used a lot in the past 12 months or so, for obvious reasons. Why the double-X versions, I don't know. Nobody would write that they "faxxed a document". But it could be that the earliest use of vaxxed was as the title of the anti-vaccination film I mentioned in the previous post. The producers probably thought it looked more sinister. (A double-cross?) It could also be a back-formation from anti-vaxxer. In any case, the double-X variants are nowadays used by writers without any anti-vaccination message.

I gave some thought to whether some of these words ought to be classed as common. I think you could certainly say that the single-X words are quite common at present, but maybe in a year or two they'll fall out of use. I'm making all these words rare for now, but that could change.

[yelnats]

Thank you.

🥷
//

[birdy]

I gave some thought to whether some of these words ought to be classed as common. I think you could certainly say that the single-X words are quite common at present, but maybe in a year or two they'll fall out of use. I'm making all these words rare for now, but that could change.

I have a feeling that for people going through this pandemic, those words will never be regarded as uncommon, at least in the sense of being known in all English-speaking countries. And if the anti-vaxxers continue their distrust of science, they won't fall out of use even if Covid/covid eventually runs out of steam - there will always be a new disease for which to resist being vaccinated.

Speaking of the "xx," I wonder if the spelling was influenced by the "cc" in vaccinate?

[ridethetalk]

And if the anti-vaxxers continue their distrust of science, they won't fall out of use even if Covid/covid eventually runs out of steam - there will always be a new disease for which to resist being vaccinated.

I have a feeling that distrust of science itself may come to be seen as a new disease...

[birdy]

I think it already is.