Old Words—New Meaning 

By Bonnie Bonner

Look, let’s be clear, it’s unprecedented. There’re a lot of improperly overused words and phrases being thrown around lately.  

It’s a grim milestone when elbow bump no longer means smacking your funny bone, stimulus check is not the doctor tapping your knee with a rubber mallet, outdoor dining, formerly known as a picnic, is now held in heated dining parklets to enjoy with your pod people. Pods are no longer about dolphins and neither are bubbles. Remember when mitigate the curve was for driver training, a load was not viral just heavy or perhaps in a diaper, long haulers were cross-country truck drivers, lockdowns were for jailbreaks, a super spreader was a large butter knife, testing sites were for the DMV, and exponential was just hard to pronounce—and explain? 

Hoarding toilet paper would’ve been and continues to be baffling. Just one year ago, if we were spiking, it meant vodka in the punchbowl or a celebratory football move, surging depicted high tide and peaking was summiting Mt. Everest. A case load was about how much Chardonnay you could carry into the house. Only germaphobes obsessed over hand sanitizer, aerosol droplets were to be avoided from hairspray cans, curbside pickup was for trash, work from home was playing hooky in your slippers, sheltering saved lost dogs, and injecting bleach was solely for embalming—it still is.

Wash your hands and mask up kids—this is not Halloween and that is not a chinstrap. Great news, all the pandemic puppies are adopted. Did you get one? You used to zoom when you were late for school. Now school is Zoom but it’s called distance learning or remote learning—unmute yourself—and social distancing used to be avoiding your ex-boyfriend. U R still on mute! Meeting in the breakout room sounds tantalizingly similar to the makeout room but no. Reopening anyone?

There are, however, some words that cannot be used enough. Words that are now immortal: risk, exposure, PPE, front line and essential workers, first responders, medical practitioners, heroes—those who hold our dying loved one’s hand. That word is sacrifice. 

There are a multitude of overused brand new words this year as well. Did you gain the Quarantine 15 while Cheeto binging through Zoom fatigue? CV, the Vid, the Rona would've meant nothing a year ago. Would you click a link to join a Virtual Happy Hour featuring BYO Quarantinis and Ronaritas followed by everyone stepping outside for The 7pm Cheer? Probably not. Stay safe no longer means don’t drink and drive because there is nowhere to drive. Is it Blursday yet? Bigly is not, never was, and never will be a word but another President, Harding, also misspoke using the word normalcy in place of normality. Unfortunately it stuck.

Look, let’s be clear, it’s unprecedented. We are now placed in a tier or color or protocol called the new normal and those of us who survive will bond forever remembering the old normal when Corona-19 was ‘just the twinkle in a bat’s eye.’ 

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