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.
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.
