Caught in corona crossfire: How the current crisis has vilified the C word and a Mexican beer all at once

The word that will emerge from the current crisis battered and vilified beyond all recognition is most certainly corona. Thoughts immediately turn to the Mexican beer with that name whose ‘buzz score’ (good or bad impressions of the brand) on the public opinion site YouGov plunged from 75% in January to 51% in February.

That some people actually think there may be a connection between a beer and a deadly virus, of course, is a facet of human credulity that needs separate examination. But if anyone is to blame for turning a perfectly good word meaning crown into a modern synonym for a deadly virus, it’s the scientists in the late 1960s who decided that the protrusions on the virus they were examining under a microscope looked rather like the bright gaseous ring visible around the sun during an eclipse. Clearly, it was a flight of fancy that blighted the word corona.

Other brands have felt the pain of homonymy too, from a soda called Sars to a chocolate called Isis, but corona also has several other meanings that are far too specific to be quietly put aside. From the trumpet-shaped protrusion at the centre of a daffodil or narcissus to a part of a cornice with a vertical face to the most popular shape of chandeliers, corona has long been an acceptable part of society. But now that one meaning has gone viral, that will inevitably change.