It isn’t common to notice how much our language changes through time because, often, change is subtle and takes place through many years. When you think of it, Italians introduced English terms in their everyday language almost without noticing and the same can be said about words or expressions inherited from social media and, more in general, internet lingo (hello, “LOL” or “shippare”, which our youth use when they like two people together).

However, there are some words in our beautiful and poetic idiom, the use of which can be pinpointed to a specific moment in time, or a specific event, as the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated to all of us. We’re, more often than not, speaking about words that already existed, but either found renewed popularity or are today used with a different meaning