FILE - In this Wednesday, March 18, 2020 file photo, a pedestrian walks past a COVID-19 testing sign at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill. Some bored with the limitations of the term "COVID-19" and the even clunkier name of the virus that causes it — severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 — have come up with their own shorthand. On Thursday, Eric Acton, a linguist at Eastern Michigan University, said, “One of my students …
March 20, 2020
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March 20, 2020 12:12 a.m.
In pandemic, word definitions shift and new lexicon emerges
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Newscasts bring word of “hot zones” and “lockdowns.” Conversations are littered with talk of “quarantines” and “isolation.” Leaders urge “social distancing” and “sheltering in place” and “flattening the curve.”