Some of the best writing on COVID-19 has, unsurprisingly, come from publications such as the LRB, The Atlantic, New Yorker etc.
In this LRB blog post published 20 May 2020 we delve into one of our favourite subjects.. semantics combined one of our least favourite subjects Boris & the Daily Mail.
Rachel Malik writes….
One of the biggest ongoing linguistic challenges is finding ways of speaking to and about the people. Johnson has been profuse in his thanks, to colleagues but above all to ‘you the people’. Any ministerial appearance comes with thanks to the people, quite often ‘the British people’. I’ve never been thanked so much, so often, so effusively. And, for the most part, all I’ve done is stay at home. (Just so long as we don’t get ‘addicted’ to not working.) It is in some of the blandest formulations that the most political work is being done.
Writing in last weekend’s Mail on Sunday, Johnson commends ‘the phenomenal bravery, compassion and selflessness’ of various groups of workers:
The staff in our care homes and NHS doing all they can to bring the sick back to health. Teachers helping critical workers go to work by looking after their children, while still teaching those at home. Police and prison officers keeping order on our streets and in our prisons. Those producing, processing, distributing and selling food. Engineers keeping the lights on and our broadband connected.
Read the full piece at https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/may/beyond-thanks?utm_campaign=20200523%20icymi&utm_content=aunz_nonsubs_icymi&utm_medium=email&utm_source=LRB%20icymi
