how has recent
ongoing Pandemic phenomenon contributed
to English?
The corona virus-related updates give us a glimpse into how
language can quickly alter within the face of unequalled social and economic disturbance. For example, one among the outcomes of
the pandemic is that it’s brought previously unknown medical jargons to the
forefront of everyday speech. Apart from this, it also contributed a lot of new
jargons to English and Urdu languages.
Usually, the editors of dictionaries include a
novel science related and technical terms as long as they acquire a certain point of
currency outside of their disciplines. This is usually true for the
names of medicines,
since there are a lot of them. For example, there are Ritalin and Oxycontin present in the dictionary,
but not Aripiprazole.
However, the pandemic has seen a minimum of two
drug names that got into the public daily discourse.
Hydroxychloroquine, an ailment for malaria recommended
by some doctors as a treatment against the virus, was added to the Oxford English Dictionary
in July, although the name of the drug had already appeared in print as early
as 1951.
Another new drug is dexamethasone, this is a
corticosteroid that has said to reduced the COVID-19 fatality rate. It appeared
in print in 1958 and was included in the dictionary.
Similarly words that are associated
with social distancing or social isolation were there long
before the COVID-19 pandemic, but they’ve become very common
in 2020.
Self-isolate, self-isolated and shelter in
situ all received new citations for their
current usage.
Furthermore, ‘elbow bump’ has advanced from a
gesture like a high-five, as documented in 1981, to its
present form: a secure thanks to greet
another person.
Some regional differences also
are emerging in COVID-19 language. Self-isolate has
been the well-liked term in British English, whereas
self-quarantine is more commonly employed within the U.S.
“Rona” or “the rona” as slang for coronavirus has been observed within
the U.S. and Australia.
The
COVID-19 pandemic has produced so many new words
that are blends of other words. For example, “maskne,” an acne outbreak caused
by facial coverings; “zoombombing,” which is when a lot of people invade
zoom video conferences; and “quarantini,” a cocktail
consumed in isolation.
Other new blends include “covidiot,” for
someone who ignores public safety recommendations;
“doomscrolling,” which happens when you skim
anxiety-inducing pandemic-related stories on your smartphone; and the German
term “hamsterkauf,” or panic buying.
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