Figurative language in the time of Covid: English (Anglo-American) proverbs in the Coronavirus Corpus)

Abstract

The paper deals with the influence of the COVID pandemic on the English (not specifically Anglo-American) paremiology. Based on the novel Coronavirus Corpus compiled by Mark Davies’ team, the paper analyses metalinguistic use of proverbs (usually preceded by the parenthetic formula there is a proverb that says), as well as their variability exemplified by that of two proverbs, Handsome is as handsome does and Adversity/politics makes strange bedfellows. The primary conclusion is that the epidemiological crisis is reflected in lexicogrammatical changes of proverbs and in variants of phraseoschemata.