Every crisis is a crash-course in new words and concepts. The 2008 financial crunch introduced the public to subprime loans, credit default swaps and quantitative easing. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought us contact tracing, PPE (personal protective equipment rather than the degree of philosophy, politics and economics), immunocompromised and coronavirus
Covid 19 coronavirus: Crisis creates new words that enter everyday language
By Michael Skapinker
Financial Times·
6 mins to read
People line up for groceries at Countdown, Grey Lynn, adopting 'social distancing' rules. Photo / Brett Phibbs
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Old words are resurrected
Officials have had to revive old terms to explain new concepts. When Rishi Sunak, the UK chancellor, last month announced government support for companies that wanted to stop paying staff without making them redundant, he said these workers would be "furloughed" with the government paying 80 per cent of their salaries. "Furlough", from the Dutch verlof, appeared in England and in Scottish writing from the 17th century onwards, usually about soldiers' leave, and then about leave from work more generally in the 18th and 19th centuries, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
But "furlough" in the sense that Sunak used it — suspending someone from work temporarily, usually without pay — is primarily an American word, freshly adopted in the UK last month to explain a new emergency measure.
The public take control of pandemic parlance
Tony Thorne, compiler of the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang and a language specialist at King's College London, says it is not just health experts and government ministers who have introduced previously unfamiliar words into the coronavirus conversation. People have created their own words, such as "covidiot" for those who disobey social distancing rules. "Some of the language is deliberately frivolous to keep people's spirits up," he says. He has seen the use of "Miley Cyrus" as rhyming slang for coronavirus. "The public are not passive consumers of language. They've taken ownership," he says.
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He is also tracking words people have made up to describe the clothes visible during video calls — "upperware" — or "infits", as opposed to outfits, for at-home apparel. He is waiting to hear words to portray the reorganisation of book shelves visible in web conversations. I told him that when, with two colleagues, I had a technical rehearsal for a public online panel discussion later that day, one said she would have to "curate her background". Thorne said: "Good, I'm making a note of that."
Battle metaphors are common
Linguists are also tracking the changing metaphors used to describe the crisis. War and fighting metaphors are common, as in Donald Trump's White House press conference on April 15 in which he said: "All of American society is engaged and mobilised in the war against the invisible enemy. While we must remain vigilant, it is clear that our aggressive strategy is working."
When UK prime minister Boris Johnson was in hospital with coronavirus, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, who was standing in for him, said: "I'm confident he will pull through because if there's one thing I know about this prime minister: he's a fighter."
• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website
The use of war and fighting metaphors to describe diseases has attracted criticism for decades. In 1978, Susan Sontag, the late US writer, objected to descriptions of sickness as battles because they "assign to the ill the ultimate responsibility both for falling ill and for getting well".
Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor at Insead, says the problem with battle metaphors is that "war dehumanises us, pushing us to put vulnerabilities aside."
To the critics, for Raab to say that Johnson would recover because he was a fighter suggested that personal courage was enough for a patient to recover from Covid-19 and that those who did not lacked fight.
Journey metaphors suggest co-operation
Brigitte Nerlich, emeritus professor of science, language and society at Nottingham university, says she is encouraged that UK government ministers are beginning to use journey rather than war metaphors. These imply public co-operation rather than the strong-arm approach conveyed by battle talk. "A journey is an attempt to take people with them, which is good," she says.
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She pointed to journey metaphors in Raab's briefing on April 9 when he thanked the public for having "gone the extra mile". Raab added, explaining why the government could not yet ease restrictions, that "we must keep going" and that the restrictions would remain until "we've got the evidence that clearly shows we've moved beyond the peak".
But Thorne says we need a more nuanced examination of when to use battle language. Covid-19 is an all-absorbing crisis, requiring joint action and sacrifice.
The Queen understood this when, in her recent address to the UK, she said, echoing Vera Lynn's second world war song: "We will meet again". It resonated because she was old enough to have lived through the war and to be able to reassure people that difficult times eventually passed.
Thorne says these appeals to solidarity can be appropriate because, unlike issues such as Brexit, where many people said they had become bored, no one could ignore Covid-19 or what the government was asking them to do. "We can't just disapprove of war metaphors. In this situation you need a national mobilisation," Thorne says.
Written by: Michael Skapinker
© Financial Times
