[Ads-l] "Rona" = coronavirus

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

BTW, I was particularly interested in the usage of "la rona" in tweets that
are otherwise in English.

La Llorona is a popular element of Mexican and Mexican-American folk
culture (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona, with its
pronunciation), a ghostly and terrifying presence adults are often said to
warn about to make sure children return home before dark.

(I have no idea whether English-tweeting users of "la rona" are thinking of
"La Llorona," but this non-Spanish-speaker at least immediately thought of
that wailing woman.)

-- Bonnie

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 5:30 AM Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at gmail.com>
wrote:

Just thought I'd pop in to report that some Twitter users have adopted
> "rona" (or "Rona") as a shortened form of "coronavirus." (I'm sure this is
> on other forms of social media, but I'm mostly on Twitter.)
>
> It's often preceded by "the" or "la," the latter even in tweets in English.
>
> A few examples:
>
> "Rona got us fucked up, so we kicking it on FaceTime"
>
> "jordan peele is going to make a horror movie about the spring breakers
> during rona and while the message will be disjointed he'll get the oscar he
> deserved for get out"
>
> "There’s no way the rona skipped over Donald and got Idris. Somebody lyin"
>
> "la rona might not be fully controlled until july/august...."
>
> "i've had bronchitis for like 3 weeks now.. it's not getting worse so i
> know it's not la rona. but it's still kinda concerning. :/ "
>
> -- Bonnie
>

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