Half a century ago, when I was a young child, one of the first things I remember being taught at school was the saying, ‘sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me’. It was, of course, an invitation to cognitive dissonance, Right up there with the invention of Santa Claus, it was one of those entrenched, collective lies that adults told children then, and still tell them today. Why, after all, would you need this magical incantation if being called names failed to hurt you?

Names – the names we are called, what we call others us, and the objects and experiences we give names to – matter. Of course, language works in apparently mysterious ways. At times, the best endeavours of powerful actors and institutions to label the world in their interest fails, and it is that amorphous thing called ‘society’ that decides what something will be called. I remember a, admittedly prosaic, example of this around 1979 when, growing up in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, the refurbished underground metro system was due to reopen. Both residents and visitors to Glasgow are likely to confirm that its metro system is largely unremarkable and that long-term usage, repeatedly shunting through the city’s subterranean shadowlands, may induce hip or back problems in later life. Despite being the world’s 3^rd oldest underground metro system, it is a modest 15 stations spaced along 10.5km of ‘circular’ track. Circumnavigation, then, takes around 25 minutes to complete, unless you decide to engage in what locals refer to as a ‘subcrawl’ (a practice InThinking does not endorse). In 1979, as part of the modernisation, new train carriages were put in. These were of a bright orange colour – a rather extraordinary choice given the sectarian connotations the colour carries in the city – and, so the story goes, the city fathers made a concerted effort to rebrand the metro system ‘the Clockwork Orange’. The vivid orange colour, the city’s notoriously violent image, and the opaque dialect of Glasgow’s natives would make this a wonderfully apposite appellation. Unfortunately, the decidedly down to earth inhabitants of this traditionally working class city didn’t buy the bunk. The train system is unpretentiously called ‘the underground’, and nothing else. In linguistic terms it is a case of The Great and the Good 0, Regular Folks 1.

At the time of writing this, I am suffering with flu-like symptoms, including a persistent dry cough and general aches and pains. Fortunately, my symptoms seem for the moment to be reasonably mild. I am restricting myself to movement at home, and flu is not a virus, as far as I am aware, that can be transmitted (to you, the reader) through the Internet. Do I have Coronavirus or COVID-19? I don’t know, and I cannot be tested. I know only that I am unwell, but fortunately not too unwell and, although fatigued, I can at least write. If I have the virus, does it matter that I can give it a name? Well, yes. Obviously. As Laura Spinney, author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, argues, “when a new threat to life emerges, the first and most pressing concern is to name it”. If you don’t have a name for something it is, plainly, difficult to talk about it and, in the case of infectious disease, potentially frightening. In my own situation, imprecise diagnosis, including naming illness, is not hugely significant. For more vulnerable others, it probably is important, and it is crucial at a societal level. Once we have a name for something it can be discussed, public awareness can be spread, and solutions can be tendered.

In the case of the current viral pandemic (does that word terrify you too?) it is widely being referred to as ‘Coronavirus’ or, less frequently, COVID-19. Similar to the saga of the Glasgow subway, however, it will be people using language in everyday contexts who ultimately decide what to call the virus. In Sweden, where I live, the virus is increasingly being referred to as ‘Corona’. Knowing what we know about language change, this atrophying designation is hardly unanticipated. What impact this may have on sales of Mexican beer in the approaching summer months is, on the other hand, still hard to tell. Nevertheless, there are similarities between ‘Coronavirus, ‘Corona’, and ‘COVID-19’. Although the virus first emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019, no one, as far as I know, is referring to the virus as ‘Wuhan Fever’. That would certainly have a funky feel, but you may agree with me that this label would be, for several reasons, a terrible choice.

President Trump’s reference to Coronavirus as the ‘Chinese virus’ was, unsurprisingly, poorly received in China. And, his reference to Coronavirus as a ‘foreign virus’ was met with derision in some quarters. It is tempting to think of these spats as just another President Trump thing. With no political points to score, I leave that to readers to determine. What is true, however, is that President Trump is participating in a protracted discursive tradition. In a fascinating podcast from February 2018, Michael Rosen and his guests suggest that naming viruses has long been a site of contestation. Where viruses are badly named, all manner of negative consequences emerge.

Clearly, naming viruses, like naming you name it matters.

Currently, InThinking is doing what it can to support teachers and students in a very difficult set of circumstances. If you are coming to our site for the first time, along with Tim, I’d like to welcome you. I hope you find the resources (in)valuable. At about 1 million words, it is a large site containing many resources. You may wish to consider some of the pages we have already published on the importance of naming, such as this one and this one. The news story included in one of these pages, ‘Sickly Immigrants’ is, I think, particularly interesting in these somewhat unprecedented times. Considered carefully, readers of the article can identify how naming reifies asylum seekers and immigrants; rather than people who have a disease, they are linguistically constructed as people who are a disease. That is dreadfully cruel and, it strikes me, quite antithetical to the values system of the International Baccalaureate. Should our present plight encourage us to be kinder in how we talk about, write about, and treat others now and in the future, that would be a fine thing.

If you’ve read this far, I’d like to wish you, from one teacher to another, the best of luck in testing times. You work in a noble profession right enough. And if, like me, you are not at your best, I hope you get well soon.

David