Class News

Tony Lavely ’64 reports class notes make “Zoom” a big word

September 26, 2020

by Tony Lavely ’64, Class Secretary

In the September 2020 issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine I wrote: “When I do a word cloud of 2020 class notes, I’m sure ‘Zoom’ will dominate classmate engagements.” I was right!

Here is a word-cloud graphic of the 39,526 words posted in 1964 Class Notes this year (in the website version). You can see that “Zoom” is the third most frequently used word in the columns, after “Yale,” “posted,” and “emailed.”

I lost track of how many Zoom meetings classmates participated in, but there were a lot. Don Edwards said it best: “I miss the deeply human act of sharing food, but Zoom has its own intimacy, including eye contact. And we’re not limited to conversing only with the people sitting beside or across from us at a large table.”

Furthermore, many classmates attended Zoom gatherings who might otherwise not have been able to travel to a luncheon location. Even with this silver lining, we long for the day when we can gather in person again.