Words for Today

Language is a living thing. New words appear and old ones fade away. Words that have always been in the dictionary but lain low will suddenly come upon everyone’s tongue, and their meanings bend and morph. Language is changed, amongst other things, by current events. In December last year, on my own blog, Write On, I listed some of the words that have burst into our vocabulary because of Coronavirus. Revisiting them five months on is revealing.

Coronavirus	Coronavirus is a generic term for a group of viruses, including the common cold.  What we mean is SARS-CoV-2. Some time during summer 2020 we stopped referring to Coronavirus and called it Covid… see below.
Covid-19	Or just Covid. (SARS-CoV-2.)
Pandemic	An outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area (according to Merriam-Webster dictionary). Pandemic with a capital P means the spread of Covid infection.
Lockdown	Stay at home.  You can’t go out, except as specified by the government. You should WFM – you see, acronyms have developed too.
Self-Isolate	You can’t go out at all. But people fetch your shopping, collect your prescriptions and are generally sympathetic and nice to you. But this term has lapsed.
Shielding	We now talk about people ‘shielding’. In spring 2020 people ‘self-isolated’ because they had visited an area of high infection (eg northern Italy) but now they ‘shield’ because they are ‘vulnerable’ (see below).
Vulnerable	Elderly or with a chronic health condition.
Underlying Health Condition	Used a lot at the beginning, usually in the context of this person has died from coronavirus because he had an ‘underlying health condition’, meaning he was sick anyway. The government was trying to reassure us, I think. Now we say ‘vulnerable’ (see above).
Furlough	Percentage of salary paid by Government, for not working at your regular job.
Tiers	Degrees of severity of Lockdown.  We don’t have these anymore, thank Goodness.
The Virus	Still used frequently. Remember how, a few years ago, doctors used to say ‘It must be a virus’ when they couldn’t work out what was the matter with you? Oh happy days!
Social Distance	2m or 1m with a mask. The term is still going strong but how we use it is developing. I find myself saying to exam candidates ‘Not a lot of social distancing going on’. And is ‘to socially distance’ a split infinitive?
Key-workers	People who’s jobs are essential in keeping the country ticking over. Sadly, writers aren’t key workers.
Sanitise	Rub gel all over your hands. Remember how last March we were being advised to wash our hands with soap and water for 20 seconds (or whilst singing Happy Birthday twice over)?
Safe	Not infectious (with Covid germs). Remember when young people used to say ‘Safe’ when they meant ‘okay'
Bubble	Group of people (not family) who see each other regularly eg class of children.
Zoom	To video-conference.
Muted	As in ‘You are on mute’. See Zoom above.
The Numbers	… of deaths due to Covid per day.
Test	We only talk of tests in the context of Covid, but we’re all conversant with ‘lateral-flow’ and ‘PCR’.
Jabs	As for tests, only in one context, but we can all rattle off the different brands: Pfizer, Astra-Zeneca, Moderna… and my Word spellcheck Word picks up them all
Variants	Of The Virus. Eg South African, Kent.

Mark and inwardly digest these words. They will stay with us.  Our parents and grandparents still rattle off Second World War words acquired during World War 2. It’s part of who they are. For us, the Covid generation, the words above will become part of our identity.

Rosemary Johnson has had many short stories published, in print and online, most recently at The Copperfield Review, 101 Words, Fictionontheweb and Café Lit.  She has also written a novel about the Solidarity period in Poland which she is – take deep breath – trying to get published.  In real life, she is a retired IT tutor, living in Suffolk with her husband and cat.