Holidays 2021-01-01

Making a commitment towards others, enabling people with names starting with the letter Z to go first for a change, copyright laws that protect intellectual property, copyrights expiring to increase their usage, giving apples as gifts, family/peace/sharing, the Euro currency, the British folkloric belief that your first visitor of the year will determine your fortunes in the next year, recognizing the importance of immigration in general and Ellis Island's place in immigration in particular, the Bloody Mary alcoholic drink, designating words that we overused in the last year, hangovers and recovering from them, taking a quick swim in cold water to usher in the new year, and any other New Year's celebrations are all on our minds today:
Copyright Law Day and Public Domain Day are flip sides of the same coin. One celebrates that copyright law protects new works, while the other celebrates that those protections don't last forever.

Are you thinking some words/phrases were overused in 2020? Some suggestions I read were "artisanal" and "okay boomer". These overused words are recognized today.

Surprisingly many groups participate in a "polar bear swim" today, where they swim (presumably briefly) in freezing cold water, typically outdoors. Personally I'd leave this celebrations to the professionals.

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