The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the lives of people around the world. The continued threat of the disease has led to ongoing changes and challenges, requiring us to quickly adapt to different ways of working, learning, and connecting with each other. The virus has, simply put, disrupted the status quo, and it has been unlike anything we’ve experienced in modern times. Many of us have received emails, dozens of them, from our institutions, from every company we’ve ever interacted with (and some we haven’t), and even from friends and family that begin with the proclamation that we are living in “unprecedented times.” The term is not a particularly poetic one, but it has suddenly become so common that it is beginning to border on cliché. I’ve used the term myself, and I feel fairly confident that I’m not alone in falling back on a cliché to express what seems, for the most part, inexpressible. While cliché may be thought of something that is overused or unoriginal, it may also be considered a kind of linguistic shorthand intended to save time when we refer to thoughts and experiences so common that they become almost elemental to our shared understanding. So, what exactly are we saying when we use this phrase? What common human experience are we trying to communicate? Merriam-Webster documents the first use of the term “unprecedented times” around 1795. Although this term has been around for two centuries, its use has increased over time. Along the way, there have been three distinct usage peaks. According to a Google nGram (a tool that allows you to see how words and phrases have been used over time based on their occurrence in the over 30 million print books that Google has scanned), the first peak occurred in 1814/15. This peak coincided with the end of the Napoleonic wars and the end of the War of 1812; it also corresponded with the beginning of the Era of Good Feelings in the United States. The second peak occurred in 1818/1819, contemporaneous with the flu pandemic and the end of World War I and just prior to the roaring 20s and developments in Women’s Suffrage. And the most recent peak, before now, was in 1945, marking the end of WWII and the founding of the United Nations. Thus, while increased usage of the term has coincided with some decidedly challenging times in our history, the peaks also reflect new beginnings of prosperity, growth, and innovation. Innovative Higher Education https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-020-09528-4

中文翻译：

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前所未有的时代和创新

COVID-19 大流行对世界各地人们的生活产生了深远的影响。疾病的持续威胁导致了持续的变化和挑战，要求我们迅速适应不同的工作、学习和相互联系的方式。简而言之，病毒破坏了现状，它与我们现代所经历的任何事情都不一样。我们中的许多人都收到了来自我们的机构、我们曾经与之互动过的每家公司（有些我们还没有），甚至来自朋友和家人的电子邮件，其中有几十封，这些电子邮件开始时宣布我们生活在“前所未有的时代。” 这个词并不是一个特别富有诗意的词，但它突然变得如此普遍，以至于它开始接近陈词滥调。我自己用过这个词，而且我非常有信心，我并不是唯一一个用陈词滥调来表达在大多数情况下似乎无法表达的东西。虽然陈词滥调可能被认为是过度使用或非原创的东西，但它也可能被认为是一种语言速记，旨在节省时间，当我们提及如此普遍的想法和经验时，它们几乎成为我们共同理解的基本要素。那么，当我们使用这个短语时，我们到底在说什么？我们试图交流什么共同的人类经验？Merriam-Webster 记录了 1795 年左右首次使用“前所未有的时代”一词。尽管这个词已经存在了两个世纪，但它的使用随着时间的推移而增加。在此过程中，出现了三个不同的使用高峰。根据 Google nGram（一种工具，可让您根据单词和短语在 Google 扫描的超过 3000 万本印刷书籍中的出现情况，了解它们在一段时间内的使用情况），第一个峰值出现在 1814/15 年。这个高峰恰逢拿破仑战争结束和1812年战争结束；这也与美国好感时代的开始相对应。第二个高峰发生在 1818/1819 年，与流感大流行和第一次世界大战结束同时期，就在 20 年代的咆哮和妇女选举权的发展之前。而最近的一个高峰，在此之前，是在 1945 年，标志着二战结束和联合国的成立。因此，虽然这个词的使用增加恰逢我们历史上一些具有挑战性的时期，但高峰也反映了繁荣的新开端，成长，创新。创新高等教育 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-020-09528-4