The rules of coronaspeak. New words and how to create them

The rules of coronaspeak. New words and how to create them

I Lead in. Look at the new English words invented during Covid-19 pandemic.

quarantini;  locktail hour; coronaverse; infodemic; pando; infit; covidiot; iso; Zoom fatigue; quaransheen; quarantimes; coronacoinage; coronapocalypse; sanny; coronasplaining’ emotional coronacoaster

1)    Can you guess what the words mean? Share our ideas with other students.

2)    Match the words in the list to their meanings. Look through the article in Task II to check your answers.

a)    clothes worn inside during lockdown

b)    the world people now inhabit

c)    (Australian) isolation

d)    extreme tiredness and loss of energy resulting from the virtual meetings

e)    (Australian) pandemic

f)     the era in which people now live

g)    a martini mixed and drunk in lockdown

h)    fear and uncertainty due to the COVID-19 outbreak

i)      quick spread of unreliable news

j)     feelings that alternate between joy and despair during lockdown

k)    fears of the total breakdown of society as a result of coronavirus

l)      unwashed sweat on people’s faces during video conferences

m)  (Australian) hand sanitiser

n)    people who reject restrictions and behave in ways likely to make the pandemic worse

o)    a time when people drink cocktails while isolating (usually at the end of the week)

p)    situation when a non-expert tries to explain coronavirus and its effects

q)    invention of new words of phrases during the coronavirus pandemic

II Look through the article. Five sentences have been removed. Read the article and choose from the sentence (A-F) the one which fits each gap (1-5). There is one sentence that you do not need to use.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Perhaps boredom is its father, and – in the world of language and its coinage – social media the incubator. 1)_________

Start with the coronaverse, which people everywhere now inhabit, or the quarantimes, the era in which they now live. Early fears of the total breakdown of society in a coronapocalypse have proved, thankfully, too pessimistic. But viral anxiety reigns, as do complaints of Zoom fatigue. Participants appear on screen for meetings with a quaransheen of unwashed sweat on their faces. Feelings seem to be on an emotional coronacoaster. Meanwhile, covidiots are spurning lockdown restrictions in ways likely to make the pandemic worse, amid an infodemic of dodgy news and half-informed coronasplaining. At least there is a locktail hour at the end of the week (or, for many, at the end of most days).

Most of these coronacoinages – whether you have encountered them before or not – make sense on their face. But why exactly do they work? 2)_________ What, for example, is a morona? Along with the new terms above, these appear on a list collected by Tony Thorne, a linguist at King’s College London. But chances are high that most readers don’t know them, and fewer still will be using them.

3)_________ One is to repurpose an old one: the pandemic has yielded new meanings for bubble, for instance. Then there is shortening, on which Australians seem particularly keen, having coined pando (pandemic), iso (isolation) and sanny (hand sanitiser).

But the most creative category in Mr Thorne’s collection – and the largest, at nearly 40% of the total – are portmanteau words. 4)_________

The first rule of a successful new portmanteau is that it points to a thing worth naming. This may seem obvious, but perhaps not so to the coiners of infits – a decent pun on outfits, but as a term for the clothes worn inside during lockdown it is a solution in search of a problem.

The second rule is that a portmanteau should be transparent; ie, the words that went into it should be obvious. Few English words end in -tini, with the result that if someone invites you for a quarantini, you know what to expect. The more of the original two words you can use, the better. This, in turn, is much aided if the distinctive sounds in those words overlap, making the result more compact. The “teen” sound in quarantini (shared by both quarantine and martini) is key to its success.

An overlooked rule of portmanteaus is that the second element is more important than the first. That is because it is the core of the word: an XY is a type of Y, not a type of X. This explains the weakness of morona, a synonym for covidiot, from corona moron. It obeys the overlap requirement above (in the sharing of -oron-), but falls at the sequencing hurdle, since a morona is not a type of corona. Dictionary websites often have a notice to would-be word-coiners: please don’t send us your neologism and ask to have it included. 5)_________ If you want your contribution to coronaspeak to take off, you need to lobby not the dictionary-writers, but your friends and colleagues, and get them to use and publicise it. Good coinages are much rarer than failed ones, but pay attention to usefulness, transparency and sounds, and your invention may find its way into the panglossary.

A.    There are various ways to form new words.

B.    To answer that, it helps to look at some efforts that do not.

C.   There are regional variations in the preferred terminology: quarantine in official and popular usage in the UK; cocooning is a central plank in health policy in Ireland.

D.   Dictionaries record not useful words, but used ones, which are actually spoken or written long or often enough to convince the lexicographers that they have found a place in the language.

E.    The coronavirus pandemic has produced a vast number of new terms, serious and (mostly) playful, to describe the predicaments of lockdown.

F.    A portmanteau is a term like brunch, in which two words are combined, usually one or both being shortened.

III Comprehension check. Mark the sentences as True (T) or False (F). Correct the false statements.

1)    People only invent new words if they are bored.  

2)    Not all of the words invented during the pandemic are scientific terms.  

3)    Locktail hour described an hour at the end of the week, but for many people it happened at the end of most days.  

4)    Most of the coronacoinages are difficult to understand.  

5)    Most of the coronacoinages will be part of everyday usage.  

6)    Coronacoinages are formed by suffixation.  

7)    Sometimes people give new meanings to familiar words to describe new phenomena.    

8)    The article gives example of Australian coronacoinages that were the results of repurposing old terms.  

9)    In the collection of the new corona-related words shortenings are the largest group.  

10)    A portmanteau is a term in which two words are combined, usually one or both words are shortened.  

11)    Ice cream is an example of a portmanteau word.  

12)    To be successful a new portmanteau word should be easy to remember.   

13)    A portmanteau should be easy to understand; i.e., it should be clear which words went into a new portmanteau.  

14)    It’s good if in a new word the sounds overlap, making the result more compact.  

15)    In portmanteaus the first element is more important than the second.  

16)    Word morona was not successful because it didn’t follow the rules for portmanteau creation.    

17)    When you create a new word you should send it to a dictionary website.  

18)    Dictionaries record all useful and funny words that are seldom used.  

IV Vocabulary focus. Follow the link below. Study the words and word combinations using flashcards, check your understanding, practise their  spelling. Check your knowledge in the test. Play matching vocabulary game (match words to their definitions to make cards disappear)  and save the planet from asteroids by typing in correct words.

V OVER TO YOU.

A.   Follow the link to the blog listing new words. Choose  three words that are most interesting for you and find out if they exist in your native language. If similar words do not exist in your language, what terms would be used in your native language to express the same idea?

B.   Find what new words related to coronavirus pandemic were created in your native language. How would you explain the meaning of these words to English speakers?

C.   Try to create your own coronacoinage and share it with other students. Remember the rules for successful new words:

a.     There are various ways to form new words: repurposing old words, shortening, creating portmanteau words.

b.    New words should point to a thing worth naming.

c.     A portmanteau should be transparent.

d.    In portmanteaus the second element is more important than the first.