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-17^th 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.