Vaccino, Crusca rejects the ‘booster’: in Italian we say ‘recall’

The Accademia della Crusca rejects the use of the English term “booster” (with the meaning of a dose of vaccine that increases and renews the effects of a previous inoculation) instead of the very Italian “booster” to indicate the third dose of the anti vaccine. Covid. The use of “boosters” seems “useless and incomprehensible” if addressed to the general public: this is the verdict expressed through the president of the Crusca, Claudio Marazzini, professor emeritus of History of the Italian language at the University of Eastern Piedmont. “The indiscriminate and uncritical diffusion, through the media and beyond, of the word ‘booster’ alone and without the Italian equivalent, which also exists – declares Marazzini to Adnkronos – shows that once again the opportunity to help Italians to understand better, perhaps to ‘educate’ them to abandon their language, or to demonstrate that Italian does not have suitable words. And this is not true, because ‘recall’, for vaccines, has existed since the Novecento “. The president of the Accademia della Crusca, the centuries-old institution in charge of guarding the ‘treasure of the Italian language, highlights how the use of” boosters “is completely superfluous given that” in Italian in these cases we have always said’ recall ‘ , for example for tetanus, and no one has ever contested this term “. The word “booster”, remembers Marazzini, was used in a circular in the Ministry of Health of September 27, signed by the Director of Prevention Gianni Rezza. In the circular, the first time it appears, the term is placed in quotation marks, after no more. “However, the banal meaning of ‘recall’ is also explained, albeit in a parenthesis”, observes Marazzini. (by Paolo Martini)