A sample of a potential Covid-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm, in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua A sample of a potential Covid-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm, in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua
A sample of a potential Covid-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm, in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua
Lisa Lim
Opinion

Opinion

Language Matters by Lisa Lim

We don’t know how close a coronavirus vaccine is, but where does the word come from?

  • The bovine origins of the word come from physician Edward Jenner’s 1796 breakthrough on smallpox
  • It was Louis Pasteur who proposed gener­alising it to encompass all protective immunisation procedures

Lisa Lim
Lisa Lim

Updated: 8:51pm, 25 Nov, 2020

Why you can trust SCMP
A sample of a potential Covid-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm, in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua A sample of a potential Covid-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm, in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua
A sample of a potential Covid-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm, in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua
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Lisa Lim

Lisa Lim

Lisa Lim has worked in Singapore, Britain, Amsterdam and Sri Lanka, and until June 2018 was Associate Professor and Head of the School of English at the University of Hong Kong, where she still holds an Honorary position. She now is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. She is co-editor of the journal Language Ecology, founder of the website linguisticminorities.hk, and co-author of Languages in Contact (Cambridge University Press, 2016).