Seriously. Social distance was an established signifier of the virtual spaces between people of different standings in society, so how on earth did we end up slapping that label in the need to keep 6ft away from each other during this COVID-19 pandemic?
The cunning linguist, in me wants to know. I want to know how we got from a nasty little bug to a shabbily assigned public health tag without intervening stages of reflection or formulation?
Short Answer? Think “the internets”, and the warp speed of response messaging on “shoshial media”; the so-called viral response, no pun intended.)
OK, OK, in case you think I am splitting conceptual and semantic hairs, hear me out, starting with what we learnt in school in terms of academic social distance.
We learnt that “social distance” is what separates the nouveau riche from the vieux riche. (The new money vs. old money thingy.) In phenomenological terms, social distance is the whiff that the nouveau riche can’t scrub off their backs no matter how hard they try. And “social distancing” is the recoil the Kardashians experience when they try to hobnob with the true blue bloods in New York and the Hamptons. (“Can’t Buy Me Love”!, and no Paris Hilton doesn’t count.) Social distance or distancing is what Queens scrappers experience when they try to pass for the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Doesn’t happen. Won’t happen. And the reason it doesn’t happen is because social distance denotes walled cities rigged with lots of trip wires that pull up draw bridges so barbarians and “short fingered vulgarians” can’t get in – the destination being sanctums where people’s pedigree is measured by what they don’t do. Think Kardashians again and the vulgar displays of kitschy bling. The things they do vs the things they don’t do.
In the beginning was Emory Borgadus, who begat the concept of “social distance” back in the 1920s to denote the not-so physical distance between people and social groupings. And the world saw that this concept was good and useful. That was the first day. Incrucible.Net, Trim Ire to a Flame, A Blue Flame
If you wonder why vulgarians rail at gates of walled social cities, look no further than the hair triggers that pull gates up on folks, even after lifetimes of striving. Acceptance is neither guaranteed nor promised. Kinda heartbreaking if ya ask us, but nobody ever said the playbook was built on egalite, liberte and fraternite.
THE PLAGUE & Left Brained Honchos: When the plague hit, the language police must have been on vacation – otherwise how does one explain the slipping into usage of something as lazily and crudely formulated as “social distancing” to denote what health departments across the country were pushing?
Then in the Winter of 2020 came the plague named Covid-19 and the instant re-purposing of the phrase Emory Bergodus begat about a hundred years earlier; the same the world had thought was good and beautiful and useful for the cause that it was begat. Incrucible.Net, Trim Ire to a Flame, A Blue Flame
“Social distancing”, really? An abstruse Sociology 101 term pressed into describing what other phrases could have described better while preserving the currency of that old academic term? Just how hard was it to mint a new word or phrase to describe the need for people to stand at least 6 feet apart without cannibalizing an established phrase and concept? Seriously. This kind of reminds me of when “optics” was shabbily cannibalized by talking heads looking for a hip-sounding way to describe “appearance, imagery, public perception, look, imagery or semiotics, thanks to the porosity of our northern border. The cunning linguist in me shudders.
The warp speed of these intrusions is attributable to the internet. Intervening stages of reflection have, in the millennial argot of the realm, been “canceled’ – which explains why sensible alternatives like “social or personal spacing” never made it out the gate. (The idea of “personal spacing” builds upon the well worn concept of personal space or bubble, but that is just making too much sense.) “Safe spacing” or “health spacing” come to mind too but WTF?
The flash mob’s rush to name that thing or the social herd plummeting over the linguistic cliff like there was no tomorrow? You can flip a coin. The shabby recycling or cannibalization of “social distance” as conceived by Emory Bogardus in the 20s is just that, shabby and darn lazy. Damn, I need a beer.
Professor Emeritus BNSG, the cunning linguist, on shabby usage patrol.
Good day.
© Incrucible.Net, Trim Ire to a Flame, A Blue Flame
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