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More on KentOnline
From social distancing to self-isolation the coronavirus pandemic has led to an explosion of new words and phrases.
It's been four months since Boris Johnson's televised address to the nation meant an official "lockdown" to curb the spread of the deadly disease in Kent.
Prior to March 20 there were hardly any searches for the word "lockdown" on Google.
But in the months and weeks since the term has been coined daily and has taken on new meaning beyond explaining measures designed to restrict movement and services.
As we attempt to adjust to the so-called "new normal" such terms as "pandemic", "quarantine" and "self-isolation" have readily slipped into everyday conversation.
Others, such as "key workers" have been relayed by reference to a wide range of jobs from the NHS to teachers and supermarket workers.
Even Covid-19 is a simple acronym to describe an incredibly complex virus known officially as Coronavirus Disease 2019.
Google trends shows the interest in the search term "lockdown" over time
And while certain terms have been adopted with relative ease others have proved more tricky to get to grips with.
Daily utterances at the Downing Street briefings of "flattening the curve" – a strategy to reduce the number of Covid-19 cases at any one time – and "The R Number" – the transmission rate produced by a single infected person – have added to people's confusion.
This was followed shortly by such jargon as "one metre plus" – the distance by which people must keep from one another and "support bubbles" – roughly speaking those outside your home setting you can interact directly with.
Perhaps top of the list of words you might not have heard prior to the pandemic is furlough.
"Furloughing" is where an employee or worker agrees with their employer to stop work temporarily but stay employed.
Following the Chancellor's job retention scheme announcement in April millions of people have been placed on temporary leave from work with the government contributing towards their pay packet in order for them to be kept on.
Some words and phrases were coined before the pandemic but are now more regularly used such as WFH (working from home).
Others have been popularised through social media platforms such as Twitter including "covidiot", used to describe people seen as breaking the rules.
But the adaptation of existing language is about far more than just calling out any perceived misgivings or wrongdoing.
As Dr Laura Bailey, lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Kent in Canterbury explains, this new vocabulary has helped us to better understand and make sense of the change and disruption to our everyday lives.
She said: "Anything that people are going to talk about that either introduces new things or behaviours or concepts you need new terms for.
"We already had the word quarantine. You can still use it in the sense of bringing an animal in from another country - it has to be quarantined for four weeks.
"But we know when we are talking about quarantine now we are talking about the two weeks of staying inside your own house if you develop symptoms."
Dr Bailey also commented on the suggestion language could be weaponised in times of emergency with war metaphors such as "on the frontline" coined by politicians.
"Metaphors get bleached, that is a process that all metaphors go through," she said, adding that different people would likely derive alternate meanings.
"It's very easily repurposed but we know literally that Tesco workers are not at war."
Sport is often thought of as an arena in which new terms can be quickly adopted, with "biosecure venues" and "playing behind closed doors" among novel phrases heard during the pandemic.
Dr Bailey explained this is quite a common occurrence for specialised fields where you need quite specific terms to unpack meaning.
"It's very easily repurposed but we know literally that Tesco workers are not at war."
"Sports are fields where you do happen to have a lot of jargon," she said. "It's got rules so you need the words to make the rules about."
The language expert went on to explain how such previously unfamiliar or industry specific terms can soon become rapidly adopted into the mainstream.
"Words are just shortcuts, that is all they are," Dr Bailey said.
"You learn what words mean by using them, or seeing them use in context - we infer their meaning from how people use them, we sort of settle on an agreed meaning."
She added: "I'm constantly amazed by how quickly we can adopt terms and use them like we have always known them."
