Early in 2021, with the vaccines in short supply, lots of people looked up for the first time whether, under the absurd measurement created in the 1800s, they were legally classified as “obese.” As Grant Addison usefully recounted in these pages in early March, “Body Mass Index” is a crude metric that would classify most muscular or stocky men and many busty women as “obese,” including a large number of people whom we’d never call so much as chunky in idiomatic speech. Michael Jordan in his prime was “overweight” by BMI standards. People who wanted Pfizer’s protection found that they could accept language they would ordinarily balk at when it became useful to them.
I have some egg on my face because a few weeks back, I predicted that we would see the last of the pandemic’s effects on language and usage. Now, it seems it will be endemic. Some public relations manager at Delta Airlines is no doubt calling a counterpart at Corona asking how to manage the branding issues. With the lame sequel to the plague year now upon us, once again, quasi-official medical classifications are going to become a point of contention. Take “immunocompromised.” I have noticed that many worrywarts in my life have begun designating themselves as “high-risk” or “immunocompromised” for the special status it affords in the COVID-19 era. Once, you “got headaches,” but after using it to get an early vaccine slot, now you “suffer from a neurological condition.”
When mixed with self-diagnosis, “immunocompromised” can be quite the conflationary term. For example, a 40-year-old who has received two kidney transplants after a teenage bout with cancer and takes immunosuppressants and a 29-year-old who suffers from above-average-frequency ear infections can both self-classify as “immunocompromised.” This is why we see some stern language from the hospital system on what really counts. From New York’s biggest: “As you may have heard in the news, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for certain people who are immunocompromised, specifically, solid organ transplant recipients, or those who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise, such as cancer and HIV patients.” It’s good to see specificity, finally. It’ll soon be moot, though, as booster doses will be ordered generally.
Another new COVID-era word fight that has broken out is on “breakthrough infection.” On the This Week in Virology podcast, one host says: “I don’t particularly like this word, ‘breakthrough,’ because the vaccines were not … tested to prevent infection. They were tested to prevent disease. And so, ‘breakthrough’ makes them sound like they’re failing. But they’re still preventing severe disease, right?” Accepting rather than challenging the premise that the term is “misleading,” his interlocutor replies: “You notice I didn’t use the B-word. … Language matters. And I think if you are careful with your language, you know what you’re talking about. And if you know what you’re talking about, then you can respond appropriately. If you’re sloppy, I think in this sense, then people get worried. There’s fear. ‘Why would I bother getting vaccinated if I might get a breakthrough infection?’”
I would bother because I learned even one tiny thing about the issue, rather than making many mental leaps from mere connotation. There is plenty of bad information and thinking out there on vaccines, but it seems outright speculative to attribute that to word choice. Language does matter, so people should stop misunderstanding just how it does. People are perfectly capable of understanding, and even manipulating, language to make the choices they are going to make.
