Antidote and the vocabulary of COVID-19

Druide informatique announces the release of Antidote 10 v4, the third free update for the 10th edition. This new version enriches Antidote’s analyzers and dictionaries with 1400 new words and expressions in English and French. In particular, Antidote now includes vocabulary relating to COVID-19 in both languages with terms such as social distancing in English and déconfinement in French.

In the turbulence of the pandemic, many words and expressions have suddenly become part of our everyday language. The dictionaries of Antidote 10 v4 catalogue and define them, while the corrector recognizes them. For example, in French, the corrector will signal that it is more logical for the noun covid to be feminine, as prescribed by the World Health Organization and the Académie française. Antidote now also includes an expanded vocabulary relating to cryptocurrency, with words such as crypto-asset and block reward.

In English, 500 new words and expressions such as superspreader, community transmission and exomoon have been added, as well as 12,000 new combinations, 300 new etymologies and 30 new etymological notes. Many improvements have been made to the corrector, for example, better handling of verb and noun agreement with phrases such as kind of and sort of. In French, Antidote 10 v4 features 900 new words and expressions, the plural inflections for 9000 noun expressions, 1900 new etymologies and 40 new etymological notes. Correction has been refined in various ways, particularly with regard to the analysis of imperial measurements such as feet and inches, as well as inclusivity. Finally, those who have Antidote for both languages will find more than 26,000 new translations of words, expressions and combinations.

A new global keyboard shortcut quickly calls Antidote’s corrector from any application and starts correcting the clipboard's contents. Antidote is now compatible with MS Edge (Chromium version) as well as Windows 10 2004 version, Ubuntu 20.04 and Fedora 32. Integration with Google Docs is now much faster with large documents.

Druide recommends that Antidote 10 users switch to v4 by downloading the free update; Antidote will offer to do this automatically. Users of previous editions are encouraged to obtain an upgrade to Antidote 10 at a reduced price at www.antidote.info.

Druide informatique produces and markets Antidote, the most complete writing assistance software suite available for English and French, as well as Typing Pal, the renowned typing tutorial application. The company is also the creator of WebElixir, a quality assurance service for websites. In addition to its software, Druide publishes French-language literature and reference works through its subsidiary, Éditions Druide.