Words in our World
My Blog No. 22
Use
of the words in a given time period is reflective of the mood and context of
that time. New words keep evolving with the passage of time. Let us see which
new words are added during this pandemic.
Some
of the words like Healthcare, Travel, Hospitals, Doctors, Nurses, Police,
Administration, Government, President, Prime Minister, Health Minister, Centre,
State, Federal, Police, Administration, Online, Digital, Learning, Supply
Chain, Essentials, Frustration, Relief, Package, Stress and Recession have
found increased usage in these days of pandemic.
Words
like Covid -19, Corona, Virus, Post Covid-19, Post Corona, Covid-19 Heroes,
Before Corona (BC) , After Corona (AC) , After Death of Corona (AD), Corona
Warriors, Corona Saviours, Pandemic, Healthcare System, Healthcare Workers,
Quarantine, Isolation, Self-Quarantine, Self-Isolation, Social Distancing,
Lockdown, Post Lockdown, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Infodemic, Work
from home (WFH), New Normal, Webinar, Webex and
Zoom have suddenly re-surfaced in
current scenario.
Pandemic is an epidemic of disease that
has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a
substantial number of people. The word originated in mid-17th
century.
There is an exponential rise in usage
of a single word Covid-19, short
form of coronavirus
disease 2019. Self-isolation was
recorded as a word in 1834 and self-isolating in 1841.
These words are now used to describe self-imposed isolation to prevent catching
or transmitting an infectious disease. In the 1800s these were used in the
context of countries which chose to detach themselves politically and
economically from the rest of the world. PPE i.e., personal
protective equipment – dates from 1934. Social
distancing, first used in 1957, was originally an
attitude rather than a physical term, referring to an aloofness or deliberate
attempt to distance oneself from others socially. Today, we all understand it
as keeping a physical distance between ourselves and others to avoid
infection. New Normal is a term in business
and economics that refers to financial conditions following the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and
the aftermath of the 2008–2012 global recession.
The term has since been used in a variety of other contexts to imply that
something which was previously abnormal has become commonplace. Infodemic is
the outpouring of unsubstantiated media and online information relating to a
crisis. The term was coined in 2003 for the SARS epidemic, but has also been
used to describe the current proliferation of news around coronavirus.
Het poldermodel and its associated verb, polderen, is derived
from the Dutch habit of working together to reclaim parts of their country from
the sea. Since the middle ages, everyone on the same polder, regardless of
religion, politics, class and local rivalries, has had to cooperate in
maintaining the complex but vital system of windmills and dykes that kept their
land dry.
Post Corona crisis we do not know how
globalization may change its course and leadership. We are not seeing leadership out of the White
House and American Hegemony is coming to an end. Sinophobia will not China step
up to the plate, and Germany or Russia are unlikely to lead the way. We may see
a multi-polar world where America earns its place based on its current merit.
Polderen; the term, which has been defined as “pragmatic cooperation
despite differences” may offer the solution for such times till a truly global
leader emerges. This term has been used since the mid-1970s to describe the
kind of consensus political decision-making common in the Netherlands, which
has been governed by coalitions
for over a century, since no single party has ever
held a majority.
Watch-out for new words which may emerge during Covid-19 crisis.
