Sir, – Now that it seems we are finally getting on top of the scourge of this pandemic, I believe it is high time to press the delete button on some of the words and phrases that have been in incessant use over the past 15 months. My list is neither exhaustive nor prioritised but includes the following: bubble, cluster, CMO, cocooning, contact-tracing, community spread, Covidiot, essential and non-essential business, emergency brake, elbow/fist bump, flatten the curve, hand-sanitiser, herd immunity, lockdown, emergency hotel quarantining, new normal, Nphet, pandemic, PCR, PPE, PUP, pod, reproductive rate, road map, self-isolate, social distancing, stages one to five, stay at home, superspreader, vaccine eligibility, vaccine passport, rollout, variant, wash your hands, we are all in this together, wet pub, WFH, wine o’clock, and 14-day rate. I leave my personal favourite to the end, namely cohort. What happened to the word it seems to have completely replaced, group? – Yours, etc,
JOHN BURNETT,
Carrigaline,
Co Cork.