《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》最近收錄了一批新冠肺炎疫情流行用語(yǔ)，“WFH”（在家辦公）、“保持社交距離”和“自我隔離”等詞匯都被納入其中。

With terms such as WFH, social distancing and self-isolation now 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.

隨著“WFH”（work from home，在家辦公）、“保持社交距離”和“自我隔離”等詞匯成為常用詞，《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》進(jìn)行了一次非常規(guī)更新，將新冠肺炎疫情相關(guān)詞匯納入其中。

parlance[?pɑ?l?ns]：n.說(shuō)法；用語(yǔ)

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 global discourse, even to the exclusion of most other topics”.

《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》執(zhí)行編輯伯納黛特·帕頓說(shuō)：“在很短的時(shí)間內(nèi)觀察到一個(gè)詞匯的使用量呈指數(shù)級(jí)上升，并壓倒性地主導(dǎo)全球語(yǔ)言趨勢(shì)，甚至讓大多數(shù)其他話題毫無(wú)容身之地，這對(duì)詞典編纂者來(lái)說(shuō)非常罕見(jiàn)?！?/p>

Covid-19 has 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(gè)詞，也由此成為《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》中新增加的一個(gè)詞條，其定義為“一種由冠狀病毒引起的人類急性呼吸道疾病，能產(chǎn)生嚴(yán)重的癥狀，致人死亡，特別是對(duì)老年人和有其他潛在健康問(wèn)題的人群?！?/p>

exponential[?eksp??nen?l]：adj.指數(shù)的

“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(shuō)：“這次更新有些不同，它不在我們通常的季度發(fā)布周期。但現(xiàn)在是非常時(shí)期，《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》的編纂者們和其他許多人一樣，都是在家工作，他們正在追蹤新冠肺炎疫情時(shí)期語(yǔ)言的發(fā)展，并為其詞匯的用法提供語(yǔ)言和歷史背景?！?/p>

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.

《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》分析了包含80多億個(gè)詞匯的網(wǎng)絡(luò)新聞，發(fā)現(xiàn)冠狀病毒和Covid-19（2019年新冠肺炎的縮寫(xiě)）現(xiàn)在主導(dǎo)著全球的討論。去年12月，“英國(guó)脫歐”、“彈劾”、“氣候”等詞匯占據(jù)了新聞?lì)^條，而到了今年1月，“冠狀病毒”與“叢林大火”、“考拉”、“伊拉克”、“蝗蟲(chóng)”、“暗殺”等時(shí)事詞匯一起被大量使用。今年3月，《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》列出的20個(gè)最關(guān)鍵詞匯中的每一個(gè)單詞都與冠狀病毒有關(guān)。

“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(yǔ)詞典》在分析中寫(xiě)道：“1月的高頻詞主要與病毒的命名和描述有關(guān)：冠狀病毒、非典、病毒、人傳人、呼吸系統(tǒng)、流感樣。到了3月，這些關(guān)鍵詞反映了新冠病毒的社會(huì)影響，以及醫(yī)療應(yīng)對(duì)相關(guān)問(wèn)題：保持社交距離、自我隔離、封鎖、非必要的（如非必要的旅行）、推遲、個(gè)人防護(hù)用品和呼吸機(jī)等詞匯的使用都特別頻繁?！?/p>

The OED’s lexicographers have noticed a rise in the use of specialist medical terms and new acronyms, such as WFH and PPE. 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(yǔ)詞典》的編纂者們注意到，越來(lái)越多的人開(kāi)始使用專業(yè)醫(yī)學(xué)術(shù)語(yǔ)和新的縮寫(xiě)詞，比如WFH（在家辦公）和PPE（個(gè)人防護(hù)用品）。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?cè)S多人的生活方式之前，很少有人知道這個(gè)縮寫(xiě)?！眰€(gè)人防護(hù)用品的縮寫(xiě)PPE可以追溯到1977年，但“以前可能僅限于醫(yī)護(hù)和急救專業(yè)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.

“保持社交距離”這種說(shuō)法最早出現(xiàn)于1957年，“最初是一種態(tài)度，而不是一個(gè)描述身體距離的術(shù)語(yǔ)，指的是一種超然的態(tài)度，或者在社交上故意疏遠(yuǎn)他人。現(xiàn)在我們都明白，這是為了避免感染而與他人保持身體上的距離”，帕頓寫(xiě)道。

aloofness [??lu?fn?s]：n.冷漠；高傲；超然離群

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.

以前的疾病大流行也產(chǎn)生過(guò)新的詞匯?！拔烈撸ㄓ戎甘笠撸被颉耙环N致命的流行病或疾病”這種說(shuō)法首次出現(xiàn)在1382年，就在歐洲黑死病于1347年至1351年達(dá)到頂峰后不久。形容詞“自我隔離的”在1878年首次被用來(lái)描述17世紀(jì)埃亞姆村村民的行為，他們將自己隔離起來(lái)，以防止第二波黑死病蔓延到周圍的村莊。

“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(xiě)道：“詞典編纂的一個(gè)一貫主題是，巨大的社會(huì)變化帶來(lái)了巨大的語(yǔ)言變化，而在當(dāng)前的全球危機(jī)中，這一點(diǎn)從未如此真實(shí)?！?/p>

英文來(lái)源：衛(wèi)報(bào)

翻譯&編輯：yaning