Here’s what they said. “A global pandemic. A racial reckoning. A presidential impeachment. A monumental election. We all know 2020 was a year like no other. But is it possible to sum it up in one word or phrase? The Washington Post asked readers to do just that and offer their reasoning, hoping that all together we might discover some collective wisdom. To look forward, we also asked them what they were hopeful for going into 2021. Over 2,000 responded. One New Jersey high school history teacher even assigned more than 100 students to share their take. We’ve highlighted the words and phrases that were most revealing of our range of experiences and grouped them by theme. For some popular words, we included takes from multiple people, which you can see by clicking on the arrows. Many of the words submitted reflect just how horrible this year has been. “Dumpster fire” was the sixth most common word or phrase, while “nightmare” was No. 11. But others were also popular, such as “surreal” (No. 5) and variations of the word “relentless” (No. 10). A few you might expect to see, such as “quarantine” and “doomscrolling,” had to be left on the cutting-room floor, along with words we couldn’t print in a family newspaper. Although many of us were physically more alone this year, the responses showed how much we shared in common…”