As if we didn’t have enough terminology that still needs to be logged into dictionaries and various glossaries for the English language.

Social distancing is the newest term of art. Who comes up with these additions to our contemporary lexicon.

The coronavirus pandemic has made us all just a bit more conscious of mingling too tightly in crowds. We now have to maintain adequate “social distancing” from others around us.

I have noted already whether it’s a verb or a noun. I have concluded, at least for the time being, that “social distancing” is a noun. I haven’t heard anyone yet refer to someone keeping a proper “social distance,” which I suppose would be more surely a noun version of the term.

How would one use the term as a verb? Hmm. “Be sure you ‘distance socially’ from other people.” How’s that? Does it work for you?

All of this I suppose is my way of suggesting my reluctance to use the term in an every-day sort of manner. It’s one of those new, suddenly cool terms that arises from time to time. I’ll leave it to the medical experts to warn us about the potential hazard associated with getting too close to strangers.

We need to maintain proper “social distancing.”