Moving on and getting on with it
May 28, 2020
Phrasal verbs are interesting. You have verbs, like ‘move’ and ‘get’ for example. But you also have so-called phrasal verbs, verbs that are made up of a main verb together with an adverb or a preposition, or both, such as ‘move on’, in, out, over or ‘get on’, in, out, over etc., or even ‘move …
Covidcomm
May 22, 2020
We have all heard about the epidemic of misinformation, even the epidemiology of misinformation, that is emerging and spreading alongside the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Staring this tsunami in the face, I began to wonder: is there anything good out there as well, something we can be proud of in terms of information and communication? I …
What R we talking about? Pandemics and numbers
May 15, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought us many new words and phrases, words and phrases that are reshaping our lives, such as ‘social distancing’, furlough, WFH (working from home), which I always read as WTF, zoom meetings, PPE and so on. It has also brought with it lots of numbers and graphs and other mathematical and/or …
VE Day – a poem by Maureen Sutton
May 8, 2020
I didn’t want to write a post today, as I had already posted one earlier in the week. But then, by chance Maureen Sutton sent me a poem that made me think and which she has allowed me to publish here. I have come to know about Maureen’s poetry through my earlier post on pandemic …
Pandemic landscapes: Peaks and tunnels, waves and plateaus
May 6, 2020
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic I have collected metaphors used to talk about it. First there were metaphors for the virus and for what to do about the spread of the virus and so on. Then there were metaphors of lockdowns, confinement and imprisonment but also more hopeful ones of journeys. Now metaphors …
Pandemic poetry
May 1, 2020
In a post about songs in the times of coronavirus we said that there weren’t a lot of poems around yet. We only mentioned “Lockdown” by Simon Armitage… But things are changing – and I only and only vaguely looked at the poems written in English, here in the UK or elsewhere. For example, Gemma …
Science, sanity and sanitation
April 25, 2020
Lots of things keep happening in this pandemic… Two things, in particular, happened over the last couple of days, which made me and many others sit up and think. The membership of SAGE, the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies, was revealed at last, and we heard that Dominic Cummings attended meetings. At the same time, …
Chanting to the choir: The dialogical failure of antithetical climate change blogs
April 20, 2020
This is a guest post by Jennifer Metcalfe on a paper she just published. The article explored the potential for people commenting underneath two very different, even antithetical, blogs dealing with climate science, to chat about and engage with climate science. *** My paper, Chanting to the choir: the dialogical failure of antithetical climate change …
Our pandemic future: A metaphorical exploration
April 17, 2020
We have reached a point in the pandemic when many people are beginning to yearn for a return to normal life, beyond lockdowns, confinements or sheltering in place. Ed Yong, the renowned science writer, has written some great pieces for The Atlantic on the pandemic. The latest one is called “Our Pandemic Summer” (15 April) …
Being on a journey while staying at home: More about corona metaphors
April 10, 2020
Yesterday afternoon, I talked to somebody about coronavirus metaphors, which ones were good, which ones were bad etc. Of course, we discussed war metaphors. But I also said that people seem to have overlooked another, less conspicuous metaphor, the ‘journey’ metaphor. The journey metaphor is an important example of a ‘conceptual metaphor’ in Lakoff and …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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