Good news in America!
Our leaders, (now our masters), tell us they may soon allow us to leave our homes!
We may return to work (if our job still exists).
We may return to the stores (if they haven’t gone bankrupt).
And we may resume travelling (if there is gas to buy).
I’m looking forward to it!
But in the meantime, I have a disease to fight.
Not the C Virus.
The L Bacteria!
I’m afraid it got me.
It snuck up behind me, attacked and silently spread its sickness.
More on that, but first, for those new to these emails, the backstory is this:
I’m currently living on my family farm in Virginia, USA. The governor says we should not travel till June 10. So I spend my time creating courses for my new online school, The Society, and learning Italian for when the boarders open again.
A New Word Is Born
The bacteria I’m talking about is called Lyme disease.
It travels in ticks (a small, nasty “insect”).
The ticks live in fields and forests.
And I like to walk in the fields and forests.
But this disease, unlike others, does not have a test that’s 100% accurate.
So you may go to the doctor, he may test you, the test may read negative, but you still end up with the disease.
A better option is to be on the safe side.
As we say in English, better safe than sorry.
So off to town I went to get some bacteria-killing pills.
It’s more of a ghost town, these days.
I was the only customer in the pharmacy for the first ten minutes. And the one woman who entered didn’t even want me to be in the same aisle as her!
Finally, my prescription was ready. And as I stood in front of the counter, which now has virus-proof glass and a tank barrier in front of it, I was instructed by the pharmacist to “Press the bu’un.”
“The… what?” I asked.
“You have to press the green bu’un.”
“Oh, button,” I said to myself.
And there it is — the newest addition to the English language!
Maybe this word will be like the C Virus.
It’ll jump from one person to the next.
One of these people will go to the airport, fly to a big city to appear on TV and spread the new word to millions.
The “t” will go the way of the brontosaurus and triceratops.
A child in the future walking through a museum will stop his mother and ask, “Wha’s ‘a?”
I know… language changes. It’s a fact.
I remember my first year in Prague. I would walk into a class and ask, “What’s up?”
The reply was always silence, because their ten-year-old text books taught them, “Good evening, sir or madam. How are you this evening?”
But I like the “t.”
I like buttons, butter, and though I’ve never been, I’ve heard Timbuktu is lovely in the spring.
Maybe if enough of us keep saying “button” we can keep it alive.
Say it with me now, “Button…”