Healthsake: Linguistic Effect of Lockdown in COVID-19 Crisis
New Delhi, 20.04.2020
Healthsake, a new word is featured in the Collins English Dictionary online edition besides Urban Dictionary under crowd-sourcing during the lockdown that has made the world reeling under the pandemic COVID-19.
“Healthsake is a combination of health and sake meaning ‘for the sake of health’, ‘health-improving or caring’. Grammatically, it can be used as a noun and adjective both- let’s be serious about healthsake; healthsake thoughts are desirable; respectively”, said etymologist and author Dr Birbal Jha, who submitted the word to the English dictionaries for kind consideration of inclusion.
The wordsmith Dr Jha has been legendary for his coinage of words over three decades. Coining the term ‘wordology’, he wrote a bestseller vocabulary building book –‘Tricks to Wordology’ in early 2000 in which he explained how words are derived and used in real-life situations.
For the first time, a Maithili word ‘Paag’ found its place in English dictionaries last year, thanks to Dr Jha’s efforts and submissions; Maithili is one of the 22 languages in the 8th schedule of the Constitution of India.
“While thinking of healthsake, Indian lifestyles and food habits are worth adopting and practising”, says Dr Birbal Jha, who launched the ‘Namaste March’ with a message to the world how the Indian culture is all potent to contain the epidemic Coronavirus.
Much acclaimed ‘Namaste March’, a health awareness and cultural campaign under his social leadership drew global attention with the outbreak of coronavirus in the early phase in the country.
Dr Jha has been instrumental in highlighting the case of the first-ever Delhi Mohalla Clinic Dr Gopal being infected with the COVID-19 by way of writing letters to Delhi Chief Minister and central health machinery, who were prompted to take quick remedial measures.
Later on, this drew the attention of national media and thus around 1200 people, those who came in contacts with the patient and doctor, were put in quarantine to break the chain of spreading it further. This, thus, contained situation as it could have become alarming, had there been no effort to put these persons in quarantine.
Dr Birbal has recently launched www.healthsake.co.in for health awareness and preventive measures for the wellbeing of the society at large.
“No handshake for healthsake! Keep physical distancing, not emotional distancing, given the pandemic coronavirus, goes on saying Dr Jha.
Apart from top communication skills trainer, Dr Birbal Jha is a noted author, social entrepreneur, lyricist, linguist, columnist, social thinker-worker, cultural activist and crusader all rolled into one. To his credit, he has more than 30 books on the aspects of English communication skills, personal growth, manual, parenting, culture and society.
