In my latest column for the Visual Thesaurus I look at some new words—thoughtful, creative, even playful—that have been coined in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve written about some of these words here on the blog; the column updates the list to include additional terms, from acronyms like CARES to new compounds like Zoom-bombing.
Access to my column is restricted to subscribers for three months (and if you want to read more articles like this one, please subscribe). Here’s an excerpt:
Caremongering. In Canada and India, new Facebook groups are asking people to “stop scaremongering and start caremongering,” as the Indian group puts it. The groups “aim to help those in need and particularly support the most vulnerable and those at greatest risk from COVID-19 within their communities, according to a story in Global News. Monger comes from Old English mangere and means “merchant” or “trader”; established compounds include warmonger (1580s) and fishmonger (mid-15th century). The earliest use of scaremonger is from 1888.
Caremongers India Facebook group, via BBC
Read the rest of “New Virus, New Words.”
And here’s one that’s too NSFW for the Visual Thesaurus: coronalingus, defined (in Urban Dictionary, where else) as “sex during the coronavirus time of social distancing.”
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