“Annus Horribilis” is a Latin term that most recently entered our popular lexicon in 1993, when Queen Elizabeth II of England summarized her past year (1992), in which she had witnessed the marriage breakdowns of three of her children, as well as a devastating fire at Windsor Castle, as being her own personal “annus horribilis”. Literally translated the words mean what they look like: “horrible or terrible year”.
As many of you read this article you may well be reflecting back on 2020 as your own personal “annus horribilis”. To be sure many of us will not look back fondly at the last year. Clearly, top of our thoughts on what made this such a devastating year for many will be, the virus – Covid-19 that has rampaged around the world and devastated so many people, economies and psyches. It is almost as if this virus has become the overarching factor in just about everything we do in our daily lives and has dictated what many see as loss of freedoms and even sometimes, rights. Some have rebelled against the science of Covid-19 and this fractured, divisive, intensely political and partisan world we now inhabit, Covid non-believers have often set neighbor against neighbor. In many ways we have become defined by whether we follow one political leader and Covid-denialism or another political leader who embraces science. There is, it seems, no middle ground in this argument, which has led to bitter recriminations on both sides and even violence, in the extreme. To be sure, there are plenty of other happenings in 2020 that could allow the year to be viewed as an “annus horribilis”; racial injustice, hunger, depression, home-schooling, unemployment, natural disasters (climate change), the untimely deaths of many of our childhood heroes, either courtesy of Covid-19, or of some other cause. Yes, it’s truly has been a “bugger” of a year, in the common vernacular.
As many of you read this article you may well be reflecting back on 2020 as your own personal “annus horribilis”. To be sure many of us will not look back fondly at the last year. Clearly, top of our thoughts on what made this such a devastating year for many will be, the virus – Covid-19 that has rampaged around the world and devastated so many people, economies and psyches. It is almost as if this virus has become the overarching factor in just about everything we do in our daily lives and has dictated what many see as loss of freedoms and even sometimes, rights. Some have rebelled against the science of Covid-19 and this fractured, divisive, intensely political and partisan world we now inhabit, Covid non-believers have often set neighbor against neighbor. In many ways we have become defined by whether we follow one political leader and Covid-denialism or another political leader who embraces science. There is, it seems, no middle ground in this argument, which has led to bitter recriminations on both sides and even violence, in the extreme. To be sure, there are plenty of other happenings in 2020 that could allow the year to be viewed as an “annus horribilis”; racial injustice, hunger, depression, home-schooling, unemployment, natural disasters (climate change), the untimely deaths of many of our childhood heroes, either courtesy of Covid-19, or of some other cause. Yes, it’s truly has been a “bugger” of a year, in the common vernacular.
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