Sunday Rest: covidiot.

 The global pandemic has changed a lot of stuff - I mean, really a lot of stuff - but what it has hardly changed at all, at least here in Britain, is our vocabulary.

Yes, we all talk about social distancing and coronavirus and Covid-19, and most of us will understand WFH (Working From Home), but most of the new words, with the notable exception of Covid, are actually old ones used in new combinations.

I'm not saying this is bad. Just interesting.

In fact apart from Covid the only new word that I'm aware of as at all widely-used (and even then I've only come across it in the press) is the extension of the word Covid which is covidiot. A covidiot is someone who is reckless about spreading the disease, usually by failing to observe the local regulations.

I'm trying to work out why the new Covid vocabulary has failed to catch on. Covidiot is a fairly horrible word, but that doesn't usually stop people grabbing at a neologism.

There are two possibilities that I can think of. One is that coronavirus is not a thing of fashion, and so there's no status to be had in adopting its language.

The other is that no one wants to give the wretched thing any more prominence and importance than it already has.

Sunday Rest: covidiot. The cov- bit comes from COrona Virus. (The word Covid comes from COrona VIrus Disease.) Corona is to do with crowns (as in a king's crown) because the virus is similarly spiky. The word virus comes from the Latin word for slime or poisonous liquid. A close relation is the Old English word wāse, which means marsh.

Idiot comes from the Greek idiōtēs, private person, that is, one who lacks any professional knowledge, and so an ignoramus.