The newly-added words are COVID-19, infodemic, R0, self-isolate, self-isolated, self-isolating, self-isolation, self-quarantine,\u00a0self-quarantined, shelter in place,\u00a0social distancing,\u00a0 and social isolation.<\/p>\n
The dictionary also added \u201cto flatten the curve\u201d\u00a0 in its new entries.<\/p>\n
\u201cPPE\u201d and \u201csocial recession\u201d were updated in the dictionary\u2019s sub-entries while \u201celbow bump\u201d and \u201cWFH\u201d \u2013 working (or work) from home \u2013 were included in its unrevised entries.<\/p>\n
In a post on its blog, OED also listed 20 keywords searched during the coronavirus pandemic \u2013 January \u2013 March.<\/p>\n
In January and February, some of the keywords related to coronavirus; others referred to other world events such as the Australian bushfires, the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Donald Trump\u2019s impeachment and acquittal, the Democratic caucuses, locust swarms in East Africa, investigations into the Astros sign-stealing scandal, and so on.<\/p>\n
In March, however, every one of the top twenty keywords was in some way related to coronavirus.<\/p>\n
In January, the words mainly relate to naming and describing the virus: coronavirus, SARS, virus, human-to-human, respiratory, and flu-like.<\/p>\n
By March the keywords reflect the social impact of the virus, and issues surrounding the medical response.<\/p>\n
Among the words listed are social distancing, self-isolation, and self-quarantine, lockdown, non-essential (as in non-essential travel), and postpone are all especially frequent, as are PPE and ventilator.<\/p>\n Others are COVID-19, pandemic, distancing,\u00a0 coronavirus, self-isolate, sanitiser, quarantine, virus, outbreak, corona, postpone, disinfect, and isolation.<\/p>\n OED Executive Editor, Bernadette Paton, said some of the words were generated through news and social media.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cSome of the terms with which we have become so familiar over the past few weeks through the news, social media, and government briefings and edicts have been around for years (many date from the nineteenth century), but they have achieved new and much wider usage to describe the situation in which we currently find ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Oxford English Dictionary has been updated with new words relating to the coronavirus pandemic in its April edition. The PUNCH reports that additions were also made in the dictionary\u2019s sub-entries and unrevised entries. The newly-added words are COVID-19, infodemic, R0, self-isolate, self-isolated, self-isolating, self-isolation, self-quarantine,\u00a0self-quarantined, shelter in place,\u00a0social distancing,\u00a0 and social isolation. The dictionary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2394,2419,2432,2431],"class_list":["post-3660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-new-keywords","tag-oxford-dictionary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3662,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions\/3662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.punchng.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/21100503\/Top-20-words-oxford.png\")
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