Billie Eilish, who has just won five Grammys, is also singing the theme song for the next Bond film. ‘James Bond is the coolest film franchise ever to exist,’ she said. ‘I’m still in shock.’
My husband tells me that the symptoms of shock include pale, clammy skin and bluish fingernails. Since Miss Eilish’s fingernails were painted green at the Grammy ceremony, it was not easy to tell. But a life-threatening drop in blood pressure was clearly not present.
The phrase in shock is now used where we used to say shocked, or even overjoyed. Perhaps people have been watching Casualty too much. From a metaphor, it has become an annoying cliché.
Shock, from the French choque, began as the word for a collision of armies. Shakespeare was in the first generation to use it when he wrote in Richard III of a ‘doubtful shock of arms’.
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