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U.S. NEWS Saturday 21 March 2020
Continued from front Mayor Bill de Blasio have But Hall Jamieson marvels
"They provide comfort and subsequently aired differ- at how Dr. Anthony Fauci
order amid chaos. They ent messages on the possi- and others have managed
provide solidarity in an age bility of more severe restric- to get the public to grasp a
of social distancing." tions in the biggest Ameri- complicated medical con-
A look at the fast-evolving can city, with the mayor cept with the phrase "flat-
lexicon of the coronavirus urging residents to prepare tening the curve," often ac-
pandemic: to "shelter in place" and companied by visual hand
WARTIME METAPHORS the governor criticizing the cues. And many see "social
Trump, who spent weeks idea and the language. distancing" to be the great-
brushing off the sever- Cuomo has dismissed "shel- est pandemic-era addition
ity of the crisis, is now tout- ter in place" as a relic of the the vernacular yet — easily
ing himself as "a wartime Atomic Age, when people understood phrasing that's
president" leading the fight were trained to get to an helped communicate to In this Wednesday, March 18, 2020 file photo, a pedestrian
walks past a COVID-19 testing sign at Advocate Lutheran Gen-
against the virus. New York interior windowless room millions that they need to eral Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is until they got an "all clear" keep a safe berth to avoid Associated Press
equating ventilators to "mis- message. spreading the virus.
siles" in the battle. French "Now, that's not what peo- "That's really taken off," on Feb. 11, declaring it CO- linguistic similarity to a liba-
President Emmanuel Ma- ple really mean, but that's says Eric Acton, a linguist at VID-19. tion often consumed with
cron has bluntly declared: what it sounds like," he said. Eastern Michigan University, It doesn't exactly roll off the a lime wedge, dismissing
"We are at war." "Communicate what you "and (it's) a term that prob- tongue, and no obivous it as a "beer virus" over-
Around the world, words mean without using terms ably will have a life that acronym like AIDS or SARS blown by media hysteria.
typically used in relation that nobody understands outlives this outbreak." or MERS has arisen as a re- And others bored with the
to nuclear fallout, active and only incites panic." REBRANDING, OR SEEKING placement. limitations of COVID-19 and
shooters, deadly storms With people clamoring to LEVITY Seeking to rebrand, Trump the even clunkier name of
and war are now being de- know what's next, it's im- "We now have a name for and his allies have taken to the virus that causes it —
ployed to discuss disease. portant that a San Fran- the disease," the head of calling it the "Chinese virus," severe acute respiratory
John Baugh, a linguist at cisco "shelter in place" not the World Health Organiza- which many consider rac- syndrome coronavirus 2 —
Washington University in St. be confused with a Wuhan tion, Dr. Tedros Adhanom ist. Alaska Rep. Don Young have come up with their
Louis, says doctors are des- "lockdown," but it's hard to Ghebreyesus, announced played on the coronavirus' own shorthand.q
perate to shake the public get the same message pro-
to attention, using meta- jected everywhere.
phors they think can con- "People are using differ-
vey the seriousness of the ent terms somewhat inter-
problem. Politicians may changeably," said Dr. Irwin
be doing the same — or Redlener, an expert on di-
may be trying to capitalize saster preparedness and
on catastrophe. public health at Columbia
"They're intended to grab University. The tug-of-war
attention, whether it's politi- over terminology echoes
cally motivated or for some the patchwork of measures
other reason," Baugh said. that state and local gov-
SHIFTING DEFINITIONS ernments have taken, he
After the virus gripped Chi- said.
na, onlookers saw a "lock- VIRUS VOCABULARY
down" at the outbreak's Kathleen Hall Jamieson
epicenter of Wuhan, with cringes when scientists toss
public transit coming to a out statements of "morbid-
halt, monitors enforcing or- ity" and "mortality" in the
ders keeping people inside same breath, when public
and officials going door-to- officials warn of "asymp-
door searching for infected tomatic" people posing
people to be forced into a threat, and when news
quarantines. conferences are peppered
As COVID-19 moved west, with words like "vector" and
though, the meaning of "transmission."
such terms has morphed, "They are incomprehensi-
and leaders' definitions of ble to many in the public,"
disaster jargon has been as said the University of Penn-
varied as the public's inter- sylvania communications
pretations. expert, who co-edited "The
Cuomo, whose state has Oxford Handbook of the
the largest number of virus Science of Science Com-
cases in the U.S., created a munication."
"containment zone" in New "Public health officials," she
Rochelle last week. Paired said, "need to translate
with an order dispatch- their technical language
ing the National Guard — into intelligible language."
though only for cleaning That means saying some-
and food distribution — the thing like "not showing any
phrase conjured images of symptoms" instead of "as-
mass quarantine even as ymptomatic," using simple
businesses remained open verbs like "spread" versus
and people were free to "transmit," and opting for
come and go. the clarity of "hand-wash-
Cuomo and New York City ing" over "hygiene."