How COVID-19 Has Changed Language

Diseases leave traces on language, just as they do on the body. Scurvy — the name given in the 16th century to a debilitating ailment caused by lack of vitamin C — was quickly pressed into service as an adjective meaning “worthless.” There was no such thing as an iron lung — the colloquial term for a mechanical respirator — before the polio epidemics of the 20th century. The first use of Patient Zero — the single individual posited as the carrier of a disease in an area previously free of it— dates from 1987 and the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

COVID-19, our latest pandemic, is already changing the way we speak and write. We’re coining new words, some playful (quarantini, corn-teen), some thoughtful (caremongering, PanPal). And we’ve changed the meanings of older terms that have been around for a long time with different senses.

Here are some of the old words we’re looking at in new ways:

Canceled. Remember, way back in 2019, when canceling meant social shaming and shunning? When if comedians, actors, or athletes did something objectionable, they were canceled? When a major dictionary named cancel culture its word of the year? Post-COVID, canceled has reverted to its original, literal meaning: called off, ended. And it’s everywhere. The Tokyo Olympics? Canceled. The rest of the school year? Canceled. Your restaurant plans for the foreseeable future? Very, very canceled.

Cocooning. In 1981, the American marketing consultant Faith Popcorn (née Plotkin) coined the term…