A guide to the new vocabulary we all find ourselves using — even if we don’t like it
century (originally from Latin ‘norma’ — carpenter’s square, so conforming to a standard or rule) onto a noun perch where it doesn’t belong? Incensed, I decide it’s yet another modern phrase I want nothing to do with until a quick internet search reveals that it seems to have first surfaced during the First World War (and not, as people will no doubt tell you, after 9/11). Lockdown: To some, lockdown – a word usually used in prisons for a period when inmates are confined to their cells – is horribly apt: if you’re shielding or stuck in a small flat with no outside space, it might well feel as if you’re imprisoned. For others, it’s clear that reining in human activity has also brought benefits: less pollution, less traffic noise, plane-free skies, the reminder of what brings us happiness: good health, family, friends, good food, a walk in the sunshine. Social distancing: I do love an oxymoron and this certainly seems to be one. The World Health Organisation (WHO) prefers the term “physical distancing”, which does indeed make more sense as distancing surely suggests being anti-social?
Apparently, the idea if not the term dates back to (at least) Roman times, when lepers were compelled to live apart in leper colonies. Check out Leviticus, which goes on about leprosy at some length (13.46), “….he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp”. Or watch Ben Hur for the heart-breaking scene when Charlton Heston goes to see his infected mother and sister at the isolated colony.
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 affected some 500 million people, a third of the world’s population at that time. In St Louis, Missouri, public gatherings were halted, and schools and cinemas closed, while in San Francisco, you could be fined if caught outside without a face mask. These two cities had notably lower death rates than elsewhere in the US.
Essential supplies: The government has decreed that we can go shopping as infrequently as possible for “essential” supplies. The phrase the government website (www.gov.uk) uses is
A scene from Seattle, Washington, during the Spanish Flu pandemic
Two metres:
Claire Calman’s new novel, ‘Growing Up for Beginners’, will be published on June 4. Available to pre-order from Amazon and other outlets