The coronavirus has changed everything. Including how we talk
“Zoonosis is a word that if you once played in Scrabble you were some kind of genius,” said John Kelly, senior research editor at Dictionary.com, another online repository of definitions.“Now,” he said, “we’re all familiar that it means spreading from an animal to a human,” the path
If language is a tool, as Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, suggested, it is one wielded with great dexterity and purpose.We know that socially distancing by staying at least six feet apart helps avoid the spread of coronavirus by limiting our exposure to aerosolized droplets, which is to say — less decorously — spit flying through the air when we talk or cough.
“People are casting about for ways to talk about this unprecedented thing that’s happening and it’s a shared experience,” said Nancy Friedman, who runs a branding consultancy in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes frequently about words and their application. “We’re groping for the right language.
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