A blog post on KevinMD which discusses how new words were added to the covid lexicon defined “coronator” as the definition of someone who has recovered from the coronavirus (Maclellan-Tobert).
Coronator, which is a noun, is also found in the Urban Dictionary:
“Coronator – someone who recovers from corona virus. Ruby just recovered from the corona virus. She is a badass Coronator.”
There isn’t much about this word in social media other than Instagram, however, as it did appear in the Urban Dictionary and a blog post I decided to include it. What’s interesting is the blogger’s description of how new words come into existence due to special circumstances:
It is fascinating that Merriam-Webster added 535 new words to their online dictionary in April with this explanation, “A new word is entered in our dictionary when evidence shows it in frequent use by many writers. Usually, this process takes at least a few years, but there are extraordinary cases when a new term enters the language and immediately becomes part of our collective daily vocabulary. Such is the case with the language of the current pandemic.”
From the Delta variant to the Omicron variant, it seems like every week there is a new variant of Covid-19 or a subvariant of a given variant. Quite often you see disturbing headlines of a new strain of Covid-19 and the fear machine gets going. Enter the “scariant” – a bigger, scarier new variant of coronavirus, impervious to all previous vaccines and renders your immunity with impunity.
On 26 April 2021 a Cambridge Dictionary blog post had some word suggestions to add to the dictionary. Here is the definition for scariant:
any new variant of covid-19 that people are very worried about because of the way it is reported in the media, despite the lack of scientific evidence to suggest it is any more dangerous than the original virus
Cambridge Dictionary
Not to be outdone is the Urban Dictionary definition of scariant:
The short video below, entitled “Variant, Scariant, Lab Error” discusses the new variant Deltacron which consists of strains of both the Delta and Omicron variants of Covid-19.
courtesy of knowshares
Social Media Trends as of October 23, 2022
Facebook #scariant: people are posting about this Instagram #scariant: 198 posts TikTok #scariant: 8,259 views
Google Trends: scariant first registered during the week of April 19, 2020 but didn’t reach its popularity peak until the last week of November that year.
Lockstalgia is a portmanteau of lockdown and nostalgia and it means a fondness for the time when the world was in lockdown. Granted, not many will look back fondly on these memories, but some will. If you are now required to go back to the office full time, you might reminisce about the time you could work remotely in your pajamas or take the dog for a walk during lockdown. You might have started new hobbies during this period that you stopped doing once pandemic restrictions lifted and life went slowly back to normal.
The Collins Dictionary’s entry for lockstalgia is defined as “nostalgia for a time when the country was in lockdown, or in a more extreme form of lockdown.”
Lockstalgia also appears in the Cambridge Dictionary blog as one of several new words that entered the vocabulary in 2020:
a feeling of nostalgia for the lockdown period of the covid-19 pandemic.
Above all, just as you may have entered lockdown with purpose, exit it with purpose too. If you do not, then you may start having feelings of “lockstalgia”, and start regretting that you did not keep doing the things that you not only found more efficient but preferred and actually enjoyed.
Mark Pittaccio, a business consultant and behavioral economist for Quilter Financial Planning has some suggestions on how to avoid feelings of lockstalgia:
[the] things we did during lockdown happened in a set of very strange circumstances, and were partly driven by survival instincts. As we move forward, we need to consider how we adopt new things as the traditional rhythms of life resume…Above all, just as you may have entered lockdown with purpose, exit it with purpose too…If you do not, then you may start having feelings of ‘lockstalgia’, and start regretting that you did not keep doing the things that you not only found more efficient but preferred and actually enjoyed.
Citywire
In writing for the Daily News one author sums up their reflections of the pandemic, restrictions and lockdown: “To look on the bright side, as life begins to embrace the ‘new normal’ in our homes, cities and communities, albeit the imaginary horrors experienced by those like me, let’s store all the experiences of the past few months in a secure part of our minds for a time when we may look fondly upon the months of lockdown and tell our grandchildren and great grandchildren stories of how ‘My boss tested posi for the ’Rona so I was in iso. Popped down to the supermarket for some sanny, but it was all Magpie’d.’ Let’s call these memories, lockstalgia” (Dissanayake).
courtesy of Mike Sassi
Social Media Trends as of October 22, 2022
Facebook #lockstalgia: people are posting about this.
When couples are isolated indoors during lockdown and didn’t have much else to do, it seems logical they would be having more sex and more often that not this resulted in more babies being born. It’s hard work taking care of a newborn baby but imagine how difficult it was becoming a parent during the pandemic, coping with shortages of toilet paper and formula, not to mention the financial cost of taking care of a baby when millions of jobs were lost during lockdown.
The cohort of babies born during the global pandemic have come to be known as “corona babies.” The term started to appear in online articles and social media posts around March 2020 and the term appears in the Urban Dictionary:
A baby created as a result of the 2020 coronavirus outbreak, where people isolated together indoors with nothing better to do than “work from home” and hoard toilet paper.
“Did you know they just had a corona baby?”
“Being shut in together for 2 months will do that”
“At least the corona baby has a lifetime supply of TP“
The possibility of a Covid baby boom was discussed in a tweet posted by Starcasm on March 16, 2020.
9 months from now there are going to be a LOT of babies being born. Might as well start coming up with names for the group, right? As they grow older, I'm thinking it will go: Corona babies ➪ COVID kids ➪ Quaranteenagers ➪ illennials
Back in 2020 The List published a YouTube video asking viewers the question “will the coronavirus lead to a baby boom?”
More than two years after lockdown we have the answer to this question. An article published for the Daily Caller on May 24, 2022 acknowledged there had been an increase in the birth rate caused by the pandemic:
The U.S. birthrate saw a 1% increase over the course of 2021 with 3.66 million babies being born throughout the year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. All age groups of women over 25 contributed to the jump in birthrates, with some experts suggesting that a lengthening COVID-19 pandemic might have contributed to the bump, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Bryan Babb
courtesy of Mercenary_hero
Social Media Trends as of October 9, 2022
Facebook #coronababy: 11,000 people are posting about this Instagram #coronababy: 43,396 posts TikTok #coronababy: 29,900,000 views YouTube #coronababy: 100 videos and channels
Google Trends: “corona baby” peaked during the week of March 15th 2020 which coincided with lockdown.
Looking for love during a global pandemic can be tricky. It’s difficult to meet someone during periods of lockdown so many people used dating apps and kept in touch using zoom or chat. If you get to the stage where you want to meet up IRL then prepare to be corona zoned. This is where your partner is afraid to come over and get intimate in case they catch the ‘Rona and if you’re not vaccinated your relationship may end abruptly. This is probably just a notch up from being friend zoned.
The Urban Dictionary has a crude definition for corona zoned:
The new cockblock of 2020 due to the quarantine situation during the coronavirus outbreak. When a girl you trying to have sex with won’t meet with you purely out of fear that she might get infected with the virus.
flame99fromthablocc
An article published for the Huff Post explains it more eloquently: “When someone ― very understandably! ― doesn’t want to come to your place to hook up out of fear of catching or spreading the virus, you’ve been corona-zoned” (Wong).
Social Media Trends as of October 8, 2022
Facebook #coronazoned: people are posting about this.
What comes before Lockdown engagement? Corona-cuffing. This dating term appeared around March 2020 and refers to the “act of pressing fast forward on dating and going straight to the serious relationship stage, due to the challenging experience of being a single person during lockdown” (Glamour). Fear of missing out, maybe fear of dying alone is a strong motivator during a global pandemic when people are seeing their loved ones getting sick and possibly dying from Covid-19.
Single people have been particularly challenged by Covid restrictions, lockdown and quarantine. For many, it has made their loneliness more difficult to live with. An article published for Glamour on September 24, 2020 featured an interview with Rebecca, a 32 year old from London who “corona-cuffed” out of loneliness:
“I started talking to a guy on Hinge just before lockdown and quite literally locked him down for quarantine. It has totally enhanced my lockdown experience having someone to talk to every day and we even went on a post-quarantine holiday together, but I know he’s not The One. I was just desperate to lock someone down since I couldn’t date IRL – but things are already starting to go south as we adjust to ‘normal’ again. But, I don’t want to call things off because I’m so scared I won’t find anyone before the next lockdown.
Glamour
The Redonline magazine featured an interview with Hinge’s Director of Relationship Science, Logan Ury, who said: “Cuffing season is a period of time after the fun summer of love and being single, before the cold, lonely months of winter when people really want to get into a relationship.” There are downsides to rushing into relationships with people you hardly know especially when commitments are made too quickly. Ury continues that “Hinge are now seeing a lot more intentional daters on the app, who have used their time alone during lockdown to re-assess their dating habits” (Ilston).
Check out the informational video below as Iman Hariri-Kia, Bustle’s relationship editor, discuss the advantages and risks of settling down with a short term partner during a pandemic.
The dating world has seen new terms added during the Coronavirus pandemic, from Turbo Relationship to Lockdown Engagement. In 2020 the dating website Plenty of Fish coined the term “faucied” named after Dr. Anthony Fauci who serves as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and as Chief Medical Advisor to the President. Dr. Fauci has become something of a household name due to his expertise on coronavirus and for his regular appearances on TV.
Dr. Fauci has been a strong advocate for wearing masks during the pandemic and it is because of this that the term “faucied” came into being. Bruce Lee, a writer for Forbes magazine explains why:
When you “Fauci” someone, you don’t date that person because he or she is not taking Covid-19 and COvid-19 precautions seriously enough. For example, you may be Fauci-ing him because he claimed that the Covid-19 coronavirus is a hoax or is nothing more than the common cold. Or perhaps you have Fauci’d her because she’s posting selfies while in a maskless mosh pit.
Forbes
The term even made its way to the Urban Dictionary:
Declining to date someone because you don’t feel they’re taking COVID-19 seriously enough.
Google Trends: faucied first appeared in Google’s search engine during the week of April 5, 2020. The popularity of the term waxed and waned until it peaked during the week of July 17, 2022.
It’s no surprise that during the pandemic many people felt lonely and isolated during periods of lockdown and quarantine. Many felt the constant restrictions on movement with each new Covid wave were never ending. Couples didn’t want to be stuck at home and apart from each other so many made the decision to move in together making lockdown easier to manage. Enter the “turbo relationship,” a positive side effect of the pandemic where couples felt their relationship moved at a quicker pace than it normally would have done during periods of lockdown and where commitment milestones happened faster.
This podcast presented by Shira and Ryan discusses how dating has changed during the pandemic which has led to the term “Turbo Relationships.” (Audacy). The discussion begins at 0:33:25.
A Yahoo news report said it was unclear where the term “turbo relationship” had originated from but that it was used heavily in a report called Relationships in Lockdown produced by dating websites eHarmony and Relate. Couples’ counselors met with focus groups and the findings came from a “nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 adults” (Miller). This is what the report found:
Coined ‘turbo relationships’, over a third agree that two months in isolation feels equivalent to two years of commitment, and the same amount say they’ve reached common relationship milestones, such as moving in together, quicker. This acceleration has also led to more sex, better communication and the opportunity to discover new, shared passions.
Relate
The relationship website DatingAdvice.com published a list of dating definitions on April 4, 2022 which includes the turbo relationship:
A turbo relationship is like dating on steroids. It’s a relationship on the fast track on the highway to love. This relationship trend appeared more frequently during the beginning of the pandemic, when couples quickly decided to quarantine together rather than weathering the virus alone. With a turbo relationship, couples get serious super quickly, and often define the relationship by the second date.
By the end of the week, a couple in a turbo relationship may decide they’re a perfect match, confess their love to their new partner, and talk about a future together.
Spira
Watch the discussion below as Kulie and Yue discuss their own experiences with Turbo Relationships and ask some important questions. Are turbo relationships a good thing or are there drawbacks to moving so quickly?
Google Trends: “turbo relationship” was first picked up in March 2020 when lockdowns began in the United States. The term hit a peak in July 2021 when the delta variant of Covid-19 gained ground forcing new lockdowns and quarantines. The popularity of the term began to subside at the end of August 2022.
