I usually write about silly or pretentious language, but not today. Instead I want to talk about some very brave people and, because this is a language blog, about the language those people use. Almost three years ago, for a period of about six months, I spent a lot of time in a hospital where someone I loved was losing the fight for his life. In addition to keeping track of his medicines and treatments, I listened to the language around me. That’s what I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It struck me that every time I thanked someone — and there were many, many occasions to do so — the response was the same: “of course.” It was odd at first. The traditional response is “you’re welcome,” but it was a cancer hospital, so “welcome” wasn’t really appropriate. No one wanted to be there as a patient, and the caregivers would have preferred not to “welcome” anyone to the world of cancer. Newer responses — “no problem” and its close cousin, “no worries” — were horribly inaccurate. Because language arises from necessity and creativity, “of course” stepped into the breach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I watched hospital personnel reattach IV bags and adjust beds, medications, tubing, and all the other accoutrements of illness, I knew they did so because of course <\/em>they didn’t want anyone to suffer. Of course <\/em>they wanted sick people to receive the best care. Of course <\/em>they’d take time to explain, to reassure, to comfort, and to tend in every way to the needs of patients and their families. It is, I believe, a kind of love. The very best kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So now, of course <\/em>they’re working to save us from the virus. Of course <\/em>they’re putting their own lives at risk. And of course<\/em> we should thank them whenever we can. But not just with words: every precaution we take to safeguard our own health is a precaution we take to safeguard theirs. Is it difficult to give up the routines of daily life? Of course. <\/em>Is it necessary? Of course<\/em>. Should those in charge do everything — everything! — to give them the supplies they need? Of course.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And because I’m a creature of words, I add these: Thank you, doctors, nurses, EMTs, aides, clerks, and everyone else taking care of us. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I usually write about silly or pretentious language, but not today. Instead I want to talk about some very brave people and, because this is a language blog, about the language those people use. Almost three years ago, for a period of about six months, I spent a lot of time in a hospital where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26,29],"tags":[529,533,534,530,532,535],"class_list":["post-3353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trending-words","category-work-related-terms","tag-covid-19","tag-gratitude","tag-hospital-language","tag-medical-workers","tag-no-problem","tag-pandemic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4YRMV-S5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3353"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3357,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3353\/revisions\/3357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarianinthecity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}