Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Social distancing is a harmful and inaccurate meme

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

I agree that a phrase like "physical distancing" would be better, but that
ship has long since sailed.

That said, I think it is now such a ubiquitous phrase that its meaning is
no longer tied to the meanings of the individual words.  I don't think
young 'uns will associate it with a separation of social relationships
anymore than they think that "bathrooms" imply there must be a bathtub,
"sleeping together" requires sleeping, or "hang up the phone" has anything
to do with something that hangs.

Diana




On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 3:34 PM Melanie G <gomelaniego [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> Diane, I live in a VERY different place from most of the people here.  I am
> still seeing lots of MAGA banners and some of them say things like "make
> liberals cry again" and "no more bullshit".  And sure there are plenty of
> people here who will say hello and not move away, but it's with a very
> different intention.
>
> My main concern is the kids who grow up listening to this meme repeatedly
> for a few years.  Imagine the school yard bullying made possible by just
> quoting "social distancing".  I'm just really suprized there are not more
> folks here on this list who see the harm in words, which after all, make
> our world.
>
> I used to teach middle school, and I envision some horror scenarios coming
> out of this globally sanctioned and promoted "social distancing".  Besides
> which, it quite simply is an inaccurate set of words to describe what we
> are asking people to do, "keep 6 ft apart" would seem much more accurate to
> me.
>
> thanks for letting me rant and share about this.  I hope my view has given
> you some insight into at least one other part of the country ..
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