Coronavirus - a story of semantic boundaries

We know a lot more now about pandemics than we used to.

Sure, we'd heard of The Plague - the big one in terms of numbers of deaths and social impact back in the 1300s. We know surprisingly little about The Spanish flu despite its global devastation one hundred years ago. Maybe we saw reports on Ebola, HIV, MERS and SARS; but they happened somewhere else to other people. They were managed and stayed outside our immediate sphere of concern. 

See full infographic at Visual Capitalist

But we've been educated recently. 

This snippet of an infographic from Visual Capitalist with disturbing fluffy things as the number of deaths reminds us we have had pandemics and plagues for at least as long as we've recorded human history. (It's worth a look at the full infographic.)

Personally and socially, pandemics and plagues are devastating, politically they are exploitable crises, environmentally they are warning bells about humanity's disregard for other life forms, and existentially they refuse our preference to ignore our mortality. 

But semantically they are all over the place. 

The naming of pandemics, including the coronavirus, is an intriguing story.

It's a story of semantic boundaries (try singing it to the Brady Bunch theme).

From Jorge Luis Borges

Wordly Inspiration from the brilliant and irreverent Jorge Luis Borges:

It is often forgotten that [dictionaries] are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature.

Quiet - lauding the disengaged

Dismissing those who complain seems to be an Australian pastime. 

We sure have a lot of words for it: whinging poms, elitist ingrates, dole-bludgers, anti-jobs activists, professional troublemakers, idiot protestors who block the streets and make life difficult for everyone else. 

In contrast, the fabled Australian character is stoic, no-nonsense, easy going, just get it done, uncomplaining. Don't make a fuss, don't whinge, and don't - whatever you do - get involved in protests.

This fabled character recently resurfaced in Australian politics. In May 2019, Scott Morrison attributed his unexpected election victory to 'the Quiet Australians who have won a great victory tonight'. 

I wondered who these quiet Australians were and if I knew any of them; they're the majority judging by the political outcome.

If we go by the dictionary, a quiet Australian is: 

➣ marked by little or no motion or activity, gentle, easy going

➣ free from noise or uproar, unobtrusive, conservative taste 

So, are the Quiet Australians minimally active, gentle, easy-going, quiet, calm, unobtrusive people with conservative taste in clothing and food? Don't they even occasionally yell at their children?

Well no, the word quiet means something much more insidious in politics. 

TATKOP 124

There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who illuminate reality and those who obscure it.

 

See more in the TATKOP series.