Guardian sourcilleuse of the good use of the French language, the French Academy recommends to use the word Covid-19 to the feminine rather than to the masculine whereas even the majority usage in France is to use this term appeared with the epidemic male coronavirus.
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Storm in a glass of water? The Academicians are certainly in their role in recalling a simple grammar rule: for an acronym it is the genre of the main word that counts. Thus we say and write "the" SNCF because it is the acronym of the "National Railway Company" and the article agrees with the genre of the word "company".
"Coronavirus disease"
The difficulty with Covid is that it is an acronym of foreign origin. Covid is the abbreviation for the English term "Coronavirus disease" which translates to "Coronavirus disease". "Illness" being a feminine word the rule should therefore be to use the feminine when using the term Covid. In Quebec, a French-speaking stronghold in North America, the word Covid is used in the feminine.
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But, another of the fundamental rules of a language is its current usage. "Use makes the law" have the habit of saying linguists. In the case of the word Covid, it is clear that the masculine has established itself in the media, but not only. Since the beginning of the epidemic, the government has spoken of the Covid in the masculine, the Pasteur Institute also.
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Not convinced by the term "social distancing"
"Why the frequent use of the male Covid 19?" Wonders the French Academy. "Because, before this acronym spread, we mainly talked about the coronavirus, a group which owes its gender [...] to the male name 'virus'. Then, by metonymy, we gave the disease the kind of the pathogen that causes it, "she replies.
In the same way, the Academy hardly tastes the expression "not very happy", according to it, of "social distancing", a transcription of the English "social distancing". "Distancing", explains the Academy, means in its primary sense "the refusal to mix with other social classes". "We suppose, however, that this is not the meaning we want to give today to this name", quips the Academy.
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"Perhaps we could have talked about 'respecting safe distances', 'physical distance' or 'setting up safe distances'," suggests the Academy. We are waiting for the Academy to now focus on the word "deconfinement" ... absent from all dictionaries.