The Words We Use To Talk About Nature Are Disappearing. Here’s Why That Matters

Once upon a time, the English language was full of stories with “blossoms,” “rivers,” and “moss.” But these words are disappearing from our vocabularies — and along with them, our connection to the natural world they describe.

A study published in the journal Earth earlier this summer found that the use of nature-related words declined more than 60 percent between 1800 and 2019. The study’s author, Miles Richardson, a psychology professor at the University of Derby in the United Kingdom, looked at 28 everyday terms related to nature, including “bud,” “meadow,” and “beak,” using a Google database that tracked the frequency of words in English-language books over time.