coronavirus

Omicron: What is it?

Alpha, Beta, Gamma…it’s all Greek to us. Quite literally, it’s the Greek alphabet. If you’ve watched the news or spent any time online lately, you might have heard the word omicron and wondered where it came from. In May 2021, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that COVID-19 variants would… Read More

Word exploration: vaccines, vaccinations and jabs

In what the PM has described as a ‘final sprint’, the new year got off to a flying start with a COVID-19 vaccination rollout underway across the UK. In early January, Her Majesty The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh were vaccinated. The Palace decided… Read More
talking red

Pass the sanny, Bruce: Oz has its own lingo for the pando

The coronavirus pandemic is a global phenomenon, but different countries have adopted different responses to it according to their local circumstances and traditions. This is true not only in terms of public-health measures, but also in terms of the language used to describe the disease and… Read More