Words Are The Very Definition Of Us

COVID avoidance requires social distancing even if you are asymptomatic.

You have doubtless seen or heard a statement like that many times now. But what if you had seen it in 2019? Would you have known what it meant? No, but by the middle of 2020 it’s meaning was very clear.

Language is very dynamic, changing as we and our environment do. And no one would question that 2020 brought more changes than probably any year in our lives.

Even terms such as “pandemic,” “quarantine,” “lockdown” and “epidemiologist,” which we might have recognized in 2019, were not part of our general daily conversation. They certainly are now and they bring different images than how you may have remembered them before.

When I used to hear the term “quarantine” I’d think of old movies where that word was posted on homes of people infected with a disease like smallpox and the soundtrack included trouble horns playing. We were warned, of course, that we were due for something like this, but never expected that it would happen in our lifetimes.

Now that it has consumed much of our daily activities, there’s a lot of discussion about proper spelling and usage of names for the virus. You might think that “SARS-CoV-2” and “COVID-19” refer to the same thing. But technically “SARS-CoV-2” is the virus and “COVID-19” is the disease the virus causes (note the “D”). “Coronavirus” and “COVID” are just simplified terms for the virus and the disease. In 2019 I might have guessed that “COVID” was the name of a new prescription drug or maybe the name of a rock band.

Before 2020 I would have thought “herd immunity” might refer to the cows on a dairy farm and that a “super-spreader event” was a field demonstration of a new way to distribute manure. I might also have thought that “drive-thru testing” was a collegiate term for the final exams we took from the easy instructors. A “long-hauler” would have been a reference to an over-the-road trucker in 2019, not someone suffering extended effects of the virus.

Politics, which has overwhelmed us for a long time, has reintroduced us to strong terms we hadn’t used for awhile such as “intractable,” “impeachment,” “vitriol,” “insurrection,” and “toxic” as well as benign words such as “bipartisan” and “compromise.”

Both the pandemic and politics have been so front and center recently that politicians, news organizations and social media are using more pointed terms to replace usual ones. For example, the term “anger” is often replaced by stronger, more biting terms such as “outrage,” “wrath,” “indignation,” “disgrace” and “fury” to better attract your attention and get the point across that someone or some group feels slighted. Even a person can now be labeled a “disaster.” These words are now commonly used on cable news channels, which have become the new editorial page.

In the same vein, have you noticed how many things are now described using words that supercharge sentences? Simplistically, these are words such as “greatest,” “best” and “most.” Advertisers, politicians and writers of all stripes (including me) use these words more than is necessary. Maybe I’m just noticing them more. These are called superlatives (note “super”) and are often used for their shock value to beef up statements. These can also include negative connotations as well such as “worst” and “least.” The overstated “he’s the worst candidate ever and my popularity is the greatest of all time” provides a good example.

Some common words and phrases have taken on new meanings. For example, “woke” can now refer to the awareness of social and racial injustice (“he got woke”). Huh, just when I had learned to use “awakened” correctly.

It still annoys me whenever I hear that some newsworthy event (such as a plane crash) is “trending,” as if it’s a new fad or something you could show changing over time in a graph. It does seems to be used a bit less now, having been displaced by the equally tiresome “breaking news,” the near-constant label on the bottom of any news screen. And by the way, aren’t we depressed enough without the news constantly using the phrase “we’ve reached another grim milestone?” 

Not long ago I wouldn’t have known that “Antifa,” “QAnon” and “deep state” were labels associated with conspiracy theories. Heck, I wouldn’t have been clear on what “conspiracy theories” meant. “Cancel culture” is also fairly new, having to do with shaming people with opposing views out of public discussion, as was done with Colin Kaepernick. I’ve also seen it used in reference to the removal of statues.

Some years ago, it took a little research to learn that “packing heat” meant carrying a concealed gun. Now even that has been reduced to just “packing.” This is not to be confused with the popular political term “court packing,” which is entirely different. Same with “unpacking” the details of some complex topic.

Sometimes words from the past return to popularity. I remember as a kid that “cool” was used to label something as special. It seemed to fade out and then I heard it used years later as an adult. Now I hear it a lot. Same with “neat.”

President Biden has been labeled old-fashioned for his use of the term “malarkey.” Watch for it to make a comeback.