Life in the Times of Coronavirus

Life in the Times of Coronavirus - Our New Vocabulary

This article came in HT City today, 5 April 2020. It was at least there in the Gurugram version, so I assume it must have been there in the Delhi version too. Not too sure of the national reach. Though of course, most of these terms have international reach, courtesy our wonderful social media, which let’s face it, is probably the major reason for both maintaining our sanity, and at times not.

These terms are soon going to be part of our fancy dictionaries, i.e., as soon as publication of dictionaries resumes. Hmm, maybe I should check if the web versions, if they exist already have incorporated these. It’s funny, with the increased use of Google for searching the most basic of things, I have no idea how frequently Oxford or Websters update their lexicons, or whether with everything going digital, they even have a web version of their wonderful dictionaries. I only remember the various ones we had at home or carried to school, all in different sizes.

Anyway, I digress. The idea of this post wasn’t how our dictionaries were likely to change in the near future. I must try to focus on how our vocabulary is already changing in the current turbulent times.

Now I confess, I myself probably had heard of two of these terms before reading this article. I am probably not as into social media as I had thought I am. Blame it on not being active on Twitter I guess; Instagram doesn’t seem to be coming up with all this stuff. But it just made me realise how much all our lives are revolving around Covid 19 right now. And it does kind of make me sad, and a little bored at times too. I mean, frankly, I would prefer the bored to “covidcrazy”. It’s easier to handle bored than sad, or dejectet, no?

So, can we add covibored to this list? Bored of reading all this content? Use covibored. Bored of staying at home? Covibored. Bored of doing household chores? Covibored. Bored of using covibored? Covibored :D

My only hope? This new vocabulary isn’t here to stay. And our kids can go back to learning the original words, and maybe one day just forget that these terms ever existed. I hope the adults are fortunate enough to forget these terms some day too. Fingers crossed that this too shall pass. Fingers crossed to learning our lessons and doing what is right in the future. Fingers crossed to leaving a better world and a legacy.

PS- do let me know if covibored already exists. Google baba did not throw it up online

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