In this issue: Richard Peters, Managing Director<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m not really one for New Year\u2019s resolutions; I\u2019m all too aware of my inability to stick to them, so why make them in the first place?<\/p>\n
But as we move into an unprecedented second year of pandemic, the things I\u2019d like to achieve in the next twelve months \u2013 other than the elusive \u201close weight and become slim and gorgeous\u201d and its unspoken, indeed unimaginable, corollary \u201cdo more exercise\u201d \u2013 include just going out for a drink or a meal, visiting friends in another country, and even just seeing other people\u2019s unmasked faces without getting cross.<\/p>\n
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I don\u2019t know whether this qualifies as an answer to a question about my career, but one change in English usage that sticks in my mind is how younger people now use the word \u201csick\u201d to mean \u201cexcellent\u201d.<\/p>\n
Of course, youth always develops its own slang; growing up in London, I remember turns of phrase that were peculiar to people my age in my part of the city. And this is an ongoing process in every language everywhere.<\/p>\n
I think what caught me off guard with \u201csick\u201d was when I heard Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer using the term in reference to winning Wimbledon! I was taken aback that a grown-up \u2013 and a non-native speaker to boot \u2013 would use a word in a way that I had hitherto heard only from the lips of my own nephews and nieces.<\/p>\n
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