Coronavirus

There's been a few more cases in France, which means that we are now at stage two of the epidemic. What that means I do not know. But I do know that in Paris the priests must no longer put the host on the tongues of the communicants, and that the receptacles for holy water have been emptied.

Meanwhile the word "coronavirus" is useful for practicing French pronunciation, particularly aspects of stress.

In English we say coROnaVIrus, stressing the "ro" and the "vi".  French is an egalitarian language and in principle no syllables are stressed in this way. So to get away from our instinctive pronunciation as Brits you can practice pronouncing it COroNAviRUS. The end result sounds pretty good.

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