Page 204 - The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand Vol.XIII-2021

The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XIII – 2021

“Govt staff to WFH next week”

(https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2239147/govt-staff-to-
wfh-next-week)

Another word formation process that was found to be commonly used is

portmanteau or blending. In this process, a new word is coined from two existing
words. The new coined word combines and retains the meanings of the origin
words. Some common examples include “brunch” (breakfast + lunch), “motel”(motor

+ hotel), and “smog” (smoke + fog). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic situation,
the words belonging to this type are “infodemic” (information + epidemic) and

“hospitel” (hospital + hotel), as used in the following excerpt (and highlighted by
the author).

“List of “Hospitels” for COVID-19 patients in Thailand”

(https://www.pacificprime.co.th/blog/list-of-hospitels-for-covid-19-patients)

Another productive word formation process in the COVID-19 associated
discourse is compounding, generating a large number of words. Examples of

compounds used during the COVID crisis include face mask, field hospital, sandbox,
community isolation, factory accommodation isolation (FAI), home isolation (HI),

and temple isolation. The final four compounds are all based on the same core
word, “isolation,” but depict different scenarios. That is, when the number of the
inflicted people increased so substantially that field hospitals’ capacity reached the

maximum, other measures were implemented. To help ameliorate the situation,
other locations such as factories, homes, and temples were used as quarantine
facilities, and thus the terms factory accommodation isolation, home isolation, and

temple isolation, were coined. The following excerpt specifically exemplifies the
compound noun “sandbox” (as highlighted by the author).

194 COVID-19 Impact Manifestation as Seen through the Lens of Language Use