One of the great downfalls of being monolingual is the limited ability to identify flaws in one’s native language. Often, bilingual speakers will ask, ‘How do I say this word?’ And often, the translation doesn’t please them.
Once, I had a German friend ask me, “What is the word for when I am looking at someone and I know they are guilty?” I didn’t have an answer for him. Google Translate gave him the response “apprehension”, to which he shook his head in disagreement, unsatisfied.
The English language is supposed to contain at least seven hundred thousand words, and it is ever-growing. The field that studies these mechanisms is called Etymology, which has conveniently identified the most common ways words find their way into a language.
The list includes language changing over time, borrowing from other languages and word formation. Taking a quick look at the etymology of the word ‘zero’ gives:
“The English word ‘zero’ originated from the Italian ‘zero,’ which came from the Venetian ‘zevero’ - a contraction of the Italian ‘zefiro,’ traced back to ṣafira or ṣifr in Arabic, derived from the Sanskrit term śūnya.”
In each of our lifetimes, we would be familiar with the introduction of new words to our vocabulary. For example, in 2022, Merriam-Webster decided to add ‘cancel culture’ to their dictionary. By 2022, this word-phrase was already heavily embedded into daily use.
But it’s also possible for influential figures or bodies to manipulate language usage. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many English-speakers referred to the virus as ‘coronavirus’, but authorities, news sources and academics began to push for the usage of ‘COVID-19’ for the sake of accuracy. The population quickly picked up on this change.
Accurate speech is essential for avoiding ambiguity. If health officials were to discuss ‘coronavirus’, they could have been referring to any of the strains of a coronavirus, rather than COVID-19 specifically. With misinformation rampant, it was essential to remain accurate, where possible.
However, what is less obvious is when we lack the choice for a word, and it doesn’t fall nicely into our list of reasons to create a new word. This is less common and usually unproblematic.
Take, for instance, the system constructed to describe familial relations. Once we start to reach second cousins and great uncles, it starts to become quite unclear who we are talking about. They could be on the mother or father’s side, and there could be a sibling separation at some point. I’ve never met anyone that understands this system, but it’s not a big deal because it’s not important to many functions of society.
One ambiguous word, however, caused some pretty big problems during the pandemic. The word I am talking about is ‘vaccine’.
Before COVID-19, there were a few different types of vaccines, depending on the degree of protection provided. Take these three examples:
- The polio vaccine should prevent the patient from ever contracting the disease again.
- The influenza vaccine provides a degree of protection, though not guaranteed or complete, against influenza viruses.
- The rabies vaccine grants the patient a bit more time, about 24 hours, to seek preventative treatment, after potentially being exposed to the disease.
The concern here is that each of these vaccines have different impacts on the receiver and their ability to avoid the disease in question, yet each is called a vaccine.
Wikipedia defines ambiguity as: “Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible.”
Without any clarification, the word vaccine refers to three very different outcomes: complete protection, partial protection, and extended time to seek treatment.
Whilst it became apparent that the available COVID-19 vaccines offered partial protection, this did not fix the issue that the word sitting in the middle of many discussions was, at its core, ambiguous. Ambiguity leads to confusion and misinterpretation.
It’s true that the word efficacy was often coupled with the word vaccine to try to describe its outcomes, but I am arguing that the difference between >99% efficacy and ~70% efficacy should be linguistically separated.
Can we really reuse the word vaccine for a tool that in one case has the potential to eradicate a disease from the planet, and in the other case, will assist the public, but the disease will remain with the population forever?
Unfortunately, there is no Ministry of the English Language for me to submit my complaint to.
Language has a huge influence on the human brain. Imagine if, from the beginning, we were capable of referring to vaccines by the impact they had on the receiver.
How much of the miscommunication that erupted during the pandemic could have been eradicated with a small extension of the English language?
My guess: a lot.