The language we speak amid COVID-19

The language we speak shapes our reality. In this paper, we shed light on the fact that by inventing and normalizing phrases such as the "U.K. variant", "Chinese virus", or the "Spanish flu", we are not only endorsing discriminative narratives that could deepen divisions within society, harming people's mental health, but also distracting the public's attention from the most important issue amid the pandemic-how to stall or stem COVID-19 in a timely matter. Furthermore, we also make a call to actions for media professionals, health experts, and government officials to stop creating and popularizing discriminative COVID-19 terms, so that we can reduce the divisions between societies and better focus on controlling the pandemic. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2025 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.]