A couple of days ago, I heard someone say, \u201c I don\u2019t mean to be a pest, but\u2026.\u201d I remember when I was a kid, I was often told not to be a pest. I had forgotten that it seemed to be a common phrase at one time, but I hadn\u2019t heard it used in a long time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The way that the phrase was used the other day, and the way I remember it from my childhood, the term pest<\/em> referred to a bothersome person. Today when I hear the term, I usually think of a bug, or something that you\u2019d call an exterminator for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked it up and the dictionary defined pest as: a plague, pestilence, epidemic; an annoying, harmful, often destructive creature; an annoying person; one who, or that which, is troublesome, noxious, mischievous, or destructive; a nuisance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So \u201cpest\u201d usually refers to an unwanted, bothersome person, and \u2014 I suppose, it could refer to an unwanted, bothersome bug. But if you check the origin of the word, it was defined as a \u201ddestructive or harmful insect\u201d before it was defined as an \u201cannoying person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the latin root of the word is pestis, meaning \u201cdeadly contagious disease.\u201d In fact, during the late Middle Ages, when the bubonic plague killed a third of all humans, it was commonly known as \u201cthe pest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is just another example of how our language continues to change \u2014 today, with more than 100,000 people dying every day, we no longer call it a pest<\/em> \u2014 we call it COVID-19.<\/em> A couple of days ago, I heard someone say, \u201c I don\u2019t mean to be a pest, but\u2026.\u201d I remember when I was a kid, I was often told not to be a pest. I had forgotten that it seemed … Continue reading
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