I was nattering to the Missus in the car this afternoon, on the way to the doctor's for the annual medical my employers require me to pass before they give me another contract, when I found myself saying the following, in relation to the latest in the news here related to the pandemic: I'm sure the government are watching very closely for an uptick in Omicron cases.... At this point I suddenly broke off, not because I was stunned by the depth of my rather obvious analysis, but because for the first time in my life, as far as I can remember, I'd used the word uptick out loud. In fact, I pointed out the fact this was so to Noi, who wasn't terribly impressed, probably because she didn't quite get what I was on about anyway, the term being understandably quite foreign to her.
I'm not sure if I was happy or horrified that I'd used the word instead of simply talking about an increase. But I was vaguely impressed at the odd capacity we have of picking up entirely new and cumbersome ways of saying the obvious, as if this came quite naturally.
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