<div dir="auto">Not narrowly Zipfian, but I commonly hear conversations around me in Spokane, Washington, USA, in which people unwittingly go a step farther, replacing "Covid" with the more familiar "corvid" or "Clovis". These are common pronunciations here.</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, May 2, 2020, 3:23 PM Claire Bowern <<a href="mailto:clairebowern@gmail.com">clairebowern@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Around New Haven (Connecticut) I'm mostly hearing COVID, COVID-19, or sometimes CV (and of course the 'rona from Australian facebook). These generalizations about "English" need more qualification. There are also a lot of circumlocutions (not exactly a protective euphemism but somewhat reminiscent).<div>Claire</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 8:48 AM Ernei Ribeiro <<a href="mailto:ernei8299@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">ernei8299@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Dear Natalia,<div><br></div><div>In Brazilian Portuguese, the humorous form <i>coronga vírus</i> (or sometimes only <i>coronga</i>) is being used. Coronga is a species of fish, but I</div><div>think that the word is unrelated to this. This form is used just because it sounds funny.</div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Ernei</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 8:27 PM Paolo Ramat <<a href="mailto:paoram@unipv.it" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">paoram@unipv.it</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="IT"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">Dear All,<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">the short form for <i>coronavirus</i> is Covid-19. As in Russian, Ital. <i>corona </i>means<i> ‘</i>crown’; therefore it is not used as clipping for the virus name; and there have been jokes like the Russian on Prince Charles. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">Best wishes and take care, without Clorox injections as it has been suggested…<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">P.Rt.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Da:</span></b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> Lingtyp [mailto:<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>] <b>Per conto di </b>Natalia Levshina<br><b>Inviato:</b> sabato 2 maggio 2020 12:47<br><b>A:</b> <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br><b>Oggetto:</b> [Lingtyp] coronavirus and Zipf<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Dear colleagues,<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">I'm writing an informal blog post about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on language, with a focus on Zipf's correlation between frequency and word/expression length. For example, the clipping <i>corona (</i>from<i> coronavirus) </i>is becoming increasingly popular in English: <a href="https://public.oed.com/blog/corpus-analysis-of-the-language-of-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://public.oed.com/blog/corpus-analysis-of-the-language-of-covid-19/</a> <u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">I also have some data from Dutch, German, Russian and Polish. I'm wondering how other languages behave in that respect. In particular,<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">1) Is there a shorter form for coronavirus, like <i>corona</i>? Can it only refer to the virus, or also to the pandemic and the disease?<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">2) If there is such a form, is it used widely or occasionally (e.g. humorously/creatively/in quotes)? For example, in Russian <i>koronavirus</i> is the preferred form because <i>korona</i> means 'a crown'. There's an untranslatable Russian joke, <i>Prince Charles finally got a crown (korona), but it was the wrong one.</i><u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">3) Is there a popular everyday (i.e. non-astronomic) meaning of the word that corresponds to corona in that language (e.g. a crown, like in Russian)?<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><p class="MsoNormal">4) Also, are there any other abbreviations or substitutions (e.g. the use of a shorter formally unrelated word, like <i>car</i> instead of <i>automobile</i>) related to the pandemic you have observed? <u></u><u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">I promise to post a summary if I get enough interesting data.<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Many thanks and stay corona(virus)-free!<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Natalia Levshina<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><p class="MsoNormal">-- <u></u><u></u></p><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt">Natalia Levshina</span><u></u><u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics</span><u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen</span><u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The Netherlands</span><u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt"><u></u> <u></u></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div id="m_-7102243593122709341gmail-m_-3780436755867347115gmail-m_-6683973791469299508gmail-m_-1678197046611188884DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2">
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