全球新冠感染病例已經突破200萬例。從經濟到社會層面，這場疫情給世界帶來的長久影響還難以準確評估，但幾個月來，「新冠肺炎」已經成為最受關注的話題。
據《衛報》報導，今年4月，《牛津英語詞典》收錄了一批新冠肺炎疫情流行用語，「在家辦公」、「社交距離」和「自我隔離」等詞彙都被納入其中——
With terms such asWFH,social distancingandself-isolationnow in common parlance, the Oxford English Dictionary has made an extraordinary update to include COVID-19 and words related to the pandemic in its definitive record of the English language.
如今，隨著居家辦公（WFH: work from home）、社交隔離和自我隔離等詞彙成了日常用語，《牛津英語詞典》進行了一次非同尋常的更新，將新型冠狀病毒肺炎以及與這一流行病相關的詞彙收錄進其權威英語語料庫中。
The dictionary’s executive editor Bernadette Paton said that it was 「a rare experience for lexicographers to observe an exponential rise in usage of a single word in a very short period of time, and for that word to come overwhelmingly to dominate the global discourse, even to the exclusion of most other topics」.」
《牛津英語詞典》執行主編伯納黛特·帕頓表示，「對於詞典編纂者而言，一個單詞的使用頻率在極短時間內呈現指數式的增長，並在國際輿論中壓倒性地佔據支配地位，甚至使得其他大多數話題不再被討論，這是十分罕見的。」
COVID-19has done that, and has thus been added as a new entry in the OED, where it is described as 「an acute respiratory illness in humans caused by a coronavirus, which is capable of producing severe symptoms and death, esp. in the elderly and others with underlying health conditions」.
新冠肺炎就是這樣一個詞，並因此被收錄進了《牛津英語詞典》。在字典裡，它的定義是「一種由冠狀病毒引起的急性人類呼吸道疾病，能夠引起重症甚至死亡，對於老年人和基礎病患者尤其如此」。
「As something of a departure, this update comes outside of our usual quarterly publication cycle,」 said Paton. 「But these are extraordinary times, and OED lexicographers, who like many others are all working from home … are tracking the development of the language of the pandemic and offering a linguistic and historical context to their usage.」
帕頓說：「這算是破了例，這次更新沒有按照我們以往的周期性季度更新進行。但現在是非常時期，《牛津英語詞典》的編纂者和其他許多人一樣，只能居家辦公，我們在跟蹤新冠肺炎疫情期間語言的發展，並為這些詞彙的用法提供語言學和歷史語境。」
The OED’s analysis of more than 8bn words of online news stories found that coronavirus and COVID-19, a shortening of coronavirus disease 2019, are now dominating global discourse. While back in December, words such as Brexit, impeachment and climate dominated news, by January, coronavirus was seeing significant use alongside current affairs terms such as bushfire, koala, Iraqi, locust and assassination. By March every single word in the OED’s top 20 list of keywords was related to coronavirus.
通過分析超過80多億個單詞的線上新聞報導，《牛津英語詞典》發現冠狀病毒和新冠肺炎（即2019新冠肺炎病毒病的縮寫）兩個詞正主導著全球輿論。在去年12月，在新聞中佔據支配地位的是英國脫歐、彈劾以及氣候。到了1月，冠狀病毒一詞被高頻使用，其他一些與時事相關的高頻術語還有林區大火、考拉、伊拉克人、蝗蟲以及暗殺。到了3月，《牛津英語詞典》列出的20個最關鍵詞彙中上的麼一個單詞都與冠狀病毒相關。
「In January, the words mainly relate to naming and describing the virus:coronavirus, SARS, virus, human-to-human, respiratory, flu-like,」 said the OED in an analysis. 「By March, the keywords reflect the social impact of the virus, and issues surrounding the medical response:social distancing, self-isolation and self-quarantine, lockdown, non-essential (as in non-essential travel), and postpone are all especially frequent, as are PPE and ventilator.」
《牛津英語詞典》在一份分析報告中寫道：「1月的高頻詞彙主要與病毒的命名和描述相關，如冠狀病毒、非典、病毒、人傳人、呼吸系統、流感樣。到了3月，這些關鍵詞反映出該病毒的社會影響，以及與醫療應對相關的問題：社交隔離、自我隔離、封城、非必要的（出現在「非必要的旅行」一詞中）、推遲、個人防護裝備以及呼吸機的使用尤為頻繁。」
The OED’s lexicographers have noticed a rise in the use of specialist medical terms and new acronyms, such asWFHandPPE.The first noted usage of working from home was in 1995, but Paton notes that 「the abbreviation was known to very few before it became a way of life for so many of us」. The abbreviation PPE, for personal protective equipment, dates back to 1977 but was 「formerly probably restricted to healthcare and emergency professionals」.
《牛津英語詞典》的編纂者注意到，專業醫療術語和新首字母縮略詞的使用有所上升，如居家辦公和個人防護裝備。1995年，人們首次注意到在家辦公的用法，但帕頓指出，「在居家辦公成為我們許多人的生活方式之前，很少有人知道這個縮寫」。個人防護用品的縮寫PPE可以追溯到1977年，但「以前可能只有醫護和急救專業人員使用」。
Social distancing, first used in 1957, 「was originally an attitude rather than a physical term, referring to an aloofness or a deliberate attempt to distance oneself from others socially. Now we all understand it as keeping a physical distance between ourselves and others to avoid infection,」 wrote Paton.
社交隔離一詞於1957年首次被使用。帕頓寫道，「（這個詞）最早指的是一種態度，而非一種行為，其意思是出於冷漠或者特定目的而使自己與社會保持距離。如今，我們都把該詞理解為使我們自己和其他人之間保持身體上的距離，從而防止感染。」
Previous pandemics have also given rise to new vocabulary. Usage of「pestilence」, or 「a fatal epidemic or disease」, first appears in 1382, not long after the bubonic plague peaked in Europe between 1347 and 1351. The adjective「self-quarantined」was first used in 1878 to describe the actions of the villagers of Eyam in the 17th century, who isolated themselves to prevent the second wave of 「Black Death」 from spreading to surrounding villages.
此前的大流行病也曾催生過新的詞彙。「瘟疫」一詞或「一種致命的傳染病或疾病「這種說法首次出現在1382年，就在1327年至1351年歐洲鼠疫達到高峰期不久。形容詞「自我隔離的」於1878年被首次使用，該詞被用於描述17世紀英國伊姆村民的行為，他們將自己隔離起來，來防止第二波「黑死病」蔓延到周圍村莊。
「It is a consistent theme of lexicography that great social change brings great linguistic change, and that has never been truer than in this current global crisis,」 wrote Paton.
帕頓寫道：「社會的劇變會帶來語言的劇變，這是詞典編纂中的一個永恆主題。在當下的這場全球性危機中，這一點從未如此真實。」