The New Vocabulary

Just as the UK announced on 31 January 2020 that Brexit was done, that it was taking back control from Europe and vowing not to align with EU regulations, along comes Covid-19 wresting its own virulent control over people’s lives.

And then what happens? 

The law of unintended consequences returns.  On this occasion it’s the adoption of European linguistic traits by the Queen’s English.  This new vocabulary is the essential tool for politicians and scientists to communicate with the public.

In a way, the continuing immigration of foreign words, grammar and syntax is neither new nor a recent phenomenon.  Going back to 1066 the Norman Conquest and resulting from subsequent sorties to and from the “continent,” French words comprise of over 40% of modern English’s vocabulary.

It’s not just obvious words like menu, savoir faire, cliché and déjà vu but thousands of others too.  These include fruit, comfortable, place, possible, and avenue – to mention but a fraction.  Our Gallic neighbours and former colleagues across the Channel continue to cast their exotic spell. 

Consider everybody’s favourite new verb, unknown prior to March 2020, to self-isolate.  In articulating it, I cannot help but to be reminded of O-level school French classes and reflexive verbs.

In English it’s sufficient to say I sit, he/she sits.   
French people, however, say je m’assieds, il/elle s’assied.  Translated literally, their words mean I/he/she seats myself/his or herself. 
Likewise with I stop, French people say je m’arrête; for I get up they say je me lève, and for we awaken French people say nous nous réveillons.

In the new contemporary English, we aren’t isolating. Instead we are isolating ourselves.  Nous nous isolons.  And for good measure, people everywhere are isolating themselves. 

To deal with the corona virus, however, the UK isn't just importing means of expression that are foreign to the Queen’s English.  It is simultaneously rediscovering some its own Anglo-Saxon words, perhaps an assertion of its new-found independence.  Or so I would have expected.

I had formed the impression, wrongly, that the new word for the term leave of absence had originated either in Shakespeare or Chaucer.  That was until a search revealed that furlough originates a short hop across the North Sea in Dutch back in the 1620’s.[i]

Whatever about etymology of furlough, I have a question. 

What archaeologist is responsible for its excavation?   And why is it not pronounced like rough or enough?  Obviously an irregular phonetic might provide the academic answer to the latter question.  As such, that enables furlough to work at home and shine like a metaphorical beacon for these times of unsettling irregularity. 

Why must the independent U.K. invent neologisms when the current stock of vocabulary already has a subject adequately covered?  

What precisely is social distancing?  Why can’t we use a simple word that everybody knows and loves, like avoid people? 

Surely there must be a better phrase than the horrible mouthful from Westminster that commands citizens to implement social distancing.   Would it not be more easily understood if we just ask friends and family to stay away or in extremis, on a bad day, to get lost?

Belfast people might say something ranging from the abrupt “Scram,” to the lyrical “go away off and give my head peace” – or a plethora of other more prosaic expressions.

But think about it.  The term social distancing, in common with much jargon, is nonsensical. That’s because, like mandatory guidelines, it is an oxymoron.   To express what it purports to mean, it should read the opposite.  Keeping a distance from other people is and always will be inherently anti-social.  Anti-social distancing might be a more accurate expression.

Clarity of language is important, especially in a national and international emergency.  
When Government adopts Orwellian double-speak - where words mean the opposite of what is intended - advocates of the campaign to win public confidence can themselves become confused.   
For "the world’s fifth largest economy," this is inauspicious way to start ploughing its new global furrow.  Examples include a chief advisor who disobeyed her own advice; and a political leader who spoke about shaking hands with virus victims before admission into intensive care.[ii]  

Another point emerges.  We are being told to put distance between ourselves, to avoid contact with people, to isolate at home if not in monasteries or perhaps in caves.  Up until April 2020 such public policy would have been regarded as absurd.   People’s response might have been recalcitrant rather than supportive and responsible.  

That is because Governments have been ordering a largely compliant citizenry to change their natural instincts.
  
We have to abandon traits of gregariousness.  We must stop mingling, withdraw, be alone and enjoy our own company.   
Prior to the spring of 2020, people exhibiting withdrawal symptoms of behaviour might have been referred for psychological testing.  Governments are promoting personal detachment from friends, neighbours and even family.  

Withdrawal from Europe was traumatic for 48% of people in the UK.  
The idea of distancing and self-isolating for the vulnerable and elderly, of being apart from kith and kin is no less comfortable.  

Regardless of growing mistrust in the Government’s handling of the emergency,[iii] the public itself knows that self-protection is the proper instinct to follow.

©Michael McSorley 2020

Postscript:- 

The above is Part 3 of my series about Covid-19.  

Part 1 (24 March 2020) was entitled A Test for Elected Leaders[iv] and 

Part 2 (11 April 2020) was entitled Coping with Contagion, a Survival Strategy.[v]

---

[i]Online Etymology Dictionary  https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=furlough

[ii] New York Times 27 March 2020 Michelle Cottle “Boris Johnson should have taken his own medicine”   https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/opinion/boris-johnson-coronavirus.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR1mE3Sa_G11CntBdVS1SohRmZbjD663sbNx_DSxvZndh1lnVIJ4U5xude4

[iii] Observer 26 April 2020 Toby Helm “Public trust plummets in Britain’s handling of pandemic”  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/trust-wanes-in-uk-ministers-handling-of-coronavirus-pandemic-poll

[iv] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-test-for-elected-leaders.html

[v] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/coping-with-contagion-survival-strategy.html