The phrases

Well, this sure wasn’t the 2020 most of us were expecting.

This year will undoubtedly be remembered as the year the coronavirus changed everything. The pandemic swept across the world, leaving tragedy in its wake.

The coronavirus took a lot away. It cost people their lives, and it has wiped away livelihoods. It has kept people apart from their loved ones, ruining wedding celebrations, spoiling graduation ceremonies and canceling birthday parties.

But it also gave us a few things. Like, for example, a bunch of new words and phrases we now all use in our everyday vernacular.

There are so many new things we all now casually say that you could probably make a pretty decent bingo card out of them.

“You’re on mute.” We might have shouted this at our screens at some point during the lockdown while on video conferencing calls.

“Flatten the curve.” Medical professionals and government officials said this in the early days of the pandemic in a bid to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. It stressed the need to reduce the overall number of cases and stop the exponential increase in infections.

“Stay at home.” Most of us heard this in spring when much of the country was told to hunker down inside and safely out of reach from the virus.

“Stop the spread.” A favorite from elected officials. In fact, the county commissioners liked the message so much that they launched a public awareness campaign that incorporated the slogan.