Here's your "lexicon" for the new coronavirus world...

Our world is changing, and with it, so is our language. As with every tumultuous event, especially one of this magnitude, we discover and re-define words for the new season. Here are a few words and phrases for our new world:

  • Prepping for shutdown —hoarding toilet paper
  • Hoarding toilet paper —  buying toilet paper at Sam's or Costco.
  • Purell — one of two life essentials (along with toilet paper)
  • Self-quarantining — staying home when you're sick
  • Social distancing — positive term that helps normalize our technology-induced isolation
  • Staying home — even more binging, streaming and gaming
  • e-learning — skipping school
  • CDC's extensive prevention measures — doing what mom said: wash your hands, cover your mouth and stay home when sick
  • Flattening the curve — what our collective shut down efforts are doing; tacit admission that we can’t really stop a virus. 
  • Saying “Wuhan” or “Chinese” coronavirus — xenophobia
  • Handshake — sign of social and societal insensitivity
  • Fist bump — O.K. but questionable
  • Elbow touch — preferred over fist bump but better to just maintain proper social distance. 
  • Not assembling together — new highest moral civic duty
  • Best coronavirus joke — (never mind, you won't get it)
  • Suggesting that data indicates we may be overreacting — forbidden