Pandemic talk

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 06:32:57 GMT

I saw an article the other day that talked about international pandemic slang (it's here but it's behind a paywall, I think I got to it from a newsletter or something!). It was pretty interesting - mostly it had to do with workplace slang. I am not in the work-from-home world so I don't know much about this stuff - I hadn't even heard the English-language ones like "zumping" for firing (or breaking up) via Zoom. Some of the international ones were pretty intriguing. In Japan they use kubikiri - which literally means decapitation - for being laid off. In China a slang term for firing is chao yougu, which means "to fry squid." They said it comes from workers living in dormitories rolling up their quilts when they left. (I'm unclear on that one, I guess a fried squid curls up? I don't eat seafood other than just fish so I have no idea, but it's still interesting. Apparently it also gets used for quitting - you can say "I fried my own squid" in that case.)

Anyway, I started trying to think if we had any pandemic slang of our own. I really can't think of much, other than that we talk about "the old world" for life before the pandemic. (I doubt we're the only ones to use that, but for my workplace, I think that partly came from a presentation about a software update we all had to sit through where they kept saying "in the new world" regarding the new version. We used to make fun of that a lot.)

(That makes me think of a phrase that stuck in my head from somewhere: "But that was long ago, and in another country." I tried to look it up and all it comes up with is Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, which isn't the same quote. I don't know. I may be conflating some things. I certainly never read The Jew of Malta though!)

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Notes from home

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 06:24:51 GMT

I don't remember signing up for e-mails about Dior makeup (although knowing me, I probably did), but they are sending me e-mails in French and I am highly entertained by that. I did take French classes for several years - from the second half of 7th grade through 11th grade, so, what's that, 4-1/2 years? I was never a good French speaker because we didn't spend enough time on that part, but I was good at it on paper, many years ago. I haven't made any effort to keep up with it over the years so it's sort of fun to try to figure out what the e-mails are saying. Between the pictures and the bits and pieces I remember, I can mostly figure it out.

More or less unrelated to that, I've been doing Spanish language lessons on Babbel for a couple of months now. My sister, who is married to a native Spanish speaker (he grew up mostly in Mexico City) says she can't get the hang of Spanish because it's too much like French, and it confuses her. I don't know if she remembers her French more than I do or what, but that doesn't seem to bother me that much. (Really I regret now not choosing to take Spanish back in 7th grade. I think I thought French was more glamorous, or something.) Anyway, I am trying to go slow and really get it into my head rather than do it all more quickly. I think it's working but it feels very slow. I'm trying to teach some of it to Rob as I go, too.

I stayed at home almost all week out of an abundance of caution because I had a sore throat. I was supposed to go back to the screening job that I talked about last week, but meanwhile they had some sort of kerfluffle about full-time people vs. part-time people, anyway, and the upshot is that I'm probably not going to do screening any more, at least for now, and I'm going to go back to my normal workplace and help my boss work on some projects, three days a week. We're trying to do some database maintenance and stuff like that while we're shut down. It's a big place and there's only a few of us in there, so maintaining a six-foot distance is really not an issue. At this point, getting out of the house some seems like a nice idea!

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Catchy Name Needed

Pandemic talk

Notes from home