The Académie Française, guardian of the French language, has said a big non to le covid. Not to the actual disease, but to the use of the masculine definite article “le”.
While many in France have been referring to “le Covid”, the so-called “Immortals” who make up the academy have ruled otherwise. Covid, they insist, is most definitely feminine.
“Covid is the acronym for coronavirus disease and acronyms have the genus of the name that forms the core of the phrase of which they are an abbreviation,” the academy ruled in a statement on its website under the heading “Say, don’t say”, aimed at stopping the French language being infected with Anglicisms.
For example, it continued, the national rail company SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer) is “la” because the nucleus of this group is “society”, which is feminine in French. However, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) is “le” because the nucleus “committee” is masculine.
It said: “When this syntagm is composed of foreign words, the same principle applies. We can distinguish the FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, from the CIA, Central Intelligence Agency, since in one case the core word is translated by a masculine noun, bureau, and in the other by a feminine noun, agency.”
And that is not all. Pas du tout: the AF is still not grammatically done with Covid-19, which it regrets is not referred to as “corona virus morbus” (presumably Covim for short).
“Coronavirus disease – it should be noted that one might have preferred the Latin name morbus, which has the same meaning and is more universal – means ‘disease caused by the crown-shaped virus’.”
And it concluded: “We should therefore say Covid-19 since the nucleus is an equivalent of the French feminine noun maladie … The use of the feminine gender would be preferable and it may not be too late to return the acronym to its proper gender.”
While on the subject of coronavirus, the academy has a few more words of advice: the correct term is “des gestes barrières” (protective measures), and if you really do need to keep your social distance, please don’t engage in “distanciation sociale” but “respect des distances de sécurité” (respect the security distances).
Finally, when you take your car to pick up your takeaway because the restaurants are closed, do not say “drive”, which is le verbe anglais but “point de retrait automobile” or more concisely “point de retrait”.