She says, he says: "What do you mean?"

"She Says, He Says" is a rumination on some of the words that have dominated the conversation on the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It begins with a personal essay that interrogates different ways of reading, starting with biological "success" and ranging to the language of DNA. This first point of view, from a humanist, focuses on how scientists and social scientists appropriate and redeploy words. A second perspective, from a scientist, reconsiders the usages and purposes from both a personal and professional point of view. Both sections address metaphors, or models as metaphors, to represent what and how words may mean.