Our reactionary doctor comes across a “till hostess” at a French supermarket and ponders the critical role played by cashiers during the height of the pandemic, the concept of creative destruction, and the kind of dietary advice he would be dishing out if he had to man a cash register.

Deliberate and programmed changes in terminology, and in the designations of workers, are interesting in themselves and seem to occur with ever-increasing frequency. One has to keep up with them, of course, for fear of being regarded as a reactionary. What was not merely acceptable but compulsory yesterday becomes taboo today, and use of a taboo word establishes one as being not merely behind the times, but a bad person.