Dissecting the language of a pandemic

Published on: Sunday, November 01, 2020

By: Jocelyn Lee

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Credit: theguardian.com (For Illustration Purpose Only)

IT is fascinating how words are used in a context. A year ago, former president of the European Commission said Europeans had “lost their collective libido” for each other. What? Libido? Yes, that’s the word. He was comparing the EU’s political malaise to the loss of desire in a marriage. Used by a statesman, the word ‘libido’ might be grotesque and hideous. Yet, the word was borrowed to express the EU situation at that time.

As a consequence of the global pandemic, we have started using a plethora of new vocabulary: personal hygiene, social distancing, contact tracing, working from home, forehead thermometer, super-spreader, incubation period, containment, fatality rate, asymptomatic and the word list goes on. Most of these words are technical jargon used by epidemiologists. Phrases such as ‘flattening the curve’ and ‘stopping the spread are highly scientific epidemiological terms, yet they have entered our pandemic lexicons and become phrases people use in their everyday life.

In fact, some of the new words and phrases are already in the Merriam Webster Additions. Some people say Coronavirus could be corona apocalypse or corona Armageddon. Here I will highlight the language of a pandemic.

To interrupt the chain of the disease’s transmission, different countries take different drastic measures. The word ‘lockdown’ was first used after the Chinese imposed control restrictions in Wuhan. In New Zealand, it was the social bubble that bit the coronavirus. “Stay within your bubble, the bubble of people that you’ll be with” for the four weeks of lockdown” Jacinta Arden urged.

In the UK, it is shielding. In Taiwan, it was the screening and the close of the border. In Scotland, there was the curfew, lockdowns in European countries, and shut down border gates and halted international flights in Turkey. Germany had its coronavirus shutdown. India had a nationwide lockdown. Singapore rolled out a coronavirus-tracing app. Despite quarantining and airport screening, wearing masks in the US and other Western countries triggered anti-masks rallies to protest infringement on their rights to freedom. While westerners are altercating ‘masks or not’ and seeing the proliferated masked shoppers as a sign of apocalypse and lockdowns as draconian, we Malaysians and those from the Asia regions are compliant with the order as Standard Operating Procedure or SOP to mask our mouths as a preventive measure to contain the virus.

With the rise of Covid-19 and subsequent global pandemic, comes another outbreak: Xenophobia. The attack is more deadly than the virus in that it is finger-pointing and looking for someone to blame. Xenophobia is the tendency to associate subjectively exotic people of colour with the pathogen. For instance, Hong Kong Cantonese refused to serve mandarin-speakers from Mainland China. An Italian leader linked the virus with African-asylum seekers. We have heard of a 23-year-old Singaporean student in London who was bashed up by a group of four white males while walking down Oxford Street. A Malaysian girl found herself locked out of her rented house in Perth after visiting her family in Malaysia. The virus has several names: Chinese virus, African virus, Tabligh virus and a more recent one, Sabah virus. Some terminologies are political rhetoric connecting the virus to a certain group of people. Is this pandemic a blame game, sheer short-sightedness, or mismanagement? Covid-19 has crossed borders and infected en masse. Why are coloured people bearing the brunt? Although some of the racist remarks are microaggressions—those small verbal or nonverbal slights, snubs, or insults, they reflect our condescension. The United Nations Secretary-General has described such remarks as a “tsunami of hate.” In our country, the blame games continue. In today’s news, the government, and the politicians are said to be the culprits for the surge of Covid-19 cases.

During MCO, officials announced only the head of the household who could do grocery shopping. Who would be the head in the house? Must the head of the house be the man? Could the head be the wife? What if someone is renting a unit with their floor mate? Who was the head then? What if the husbands have never taken charge of grocery runs? After breaking the secret code, men assumed the roles as heads of the household and thronged the hypermarkets with grocery shopping lists written by their wives. Many of them were pacing back and forth the aisles looking puzzled. Others kept texting their wives to make sure they got the right things. Some videoed call their wives the whole time shopping for items. One particular man whose wife wanted prawn brand noodles, was clueless as there were plenty of prawn brands packaged noodles on the shelf! He was heard lamenting in the video, “tak ada binatang lain kah?” Another man whose wife could be heard on his phone speaker, was scolding him for getting the wrong carrots! Others admitted this was their first shopping blunder. The question remains. Was the word ‘head” used by the authority the wrong choice of word? Could the statement be made clearer? Anyway, Tesco rescued the anxious husbands with illustrated guides of vegetables and meat parts. The slogan Tesco was “Now husbands can shop!” Later, people managed to make the inference and switched their roles.

Another secret code that is difficult to break is the recent Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) in which two people from each household are allowed to leave home to buy food and essentials. This is comprehensible. We don’t have any problems going out two by two. Further, we are law-abiding people. It is very much like the animals entering Noah’s Ark at bible times. Logic tells us that social distancing does not fit in this context because we are from the same clan, breathing the same air, eating and cohabiting together. Living in close proximity is what it is with people under the same roof. What social distance do we need to observe? However, our assumptions are incorrect.

The reason is that the order, framed in words, requires us to make inferences. That includes our law enforcement officers who also have to break the code. Some of them may interpret that social distancing applies to all settings even in the car. To them, it is a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Whether or not you reason inductively or deductively, this particular order is a mystery. Those of us who are fined will have to remain silent as the power is not on our side. we are left with our jaws wide opened and that’s the only expression we can exhibit. Perhaps we should own a Colossus-like device used in WWII to decipher the rules of CMCO! We are not as intelligent as Alan Turing who could crack the military codes used by Germany and its allies. Neither do we speak the CMCO Codes. This is the language used in times of crisis in Malaysia. Brushing aside what is circulating on social media about drivers who allegedly fined RM1000 for sitting side by side with the passengers and claiming it as fake news does not debunk the myth. All it takes is to add a few more sentences to explain the encrypted message and it will suffice. Before the pandemic hit us, who in the world would have known what zooming or webexing meant? We know Zoomba but not Zooming. Zoom meetings are our social gatherings these days and we attend online churches on Sundays sometimes in our bedroom, other times in our dining room or sitting room.

Since the advent of the coronavirus, we have been google meeting our students. Synchronous and Asynchronous learning is learning of the day. When students have connection problems, WhatsApp and Telegram come in handy. Mr. Pandemic has shaken us out of our comfort zone to new terrain and pushed us to upskill our digital literacy.

Boris Johnson claimed that Britons have to squash the sombrero to flatten the curve, yet gave people the options to do what was best. The ministers in Malaysia summon people to stay at home. All commanders in Chief have inspirational quotes. I have no idea whether they are inspirational or just their political slogans. You are the judge. I get this joke from the WhatsApp forwarded image: Tun Dr. Mahathir had Warisan 2020, Najib Rasak, Satu Malaysia, and Muyhiddin Yassin, duduk di rumah. So now we have the whole nation sitting quietly at home! Who would have known that the virus has waves and not ripples, tides or currents? Now that we are in the third wave, so duduk diam-diam di rumah!

This is the language of the pandemic. Man! What a year!

Jocelyn holds a doctorate and is with the Academy of language studies, UITM in Kota Kinabalu