Sometimes it can happen that you see a video from a few years ago – maybe at somebody’s house – and someone – maybe somebody you don’t like – uses a word or turn of phrase on the film and you know he or she picked that up from you because it was your way of referring to something, and moreover, you still use that word or turn of phrase, and you feel oh I’m going to stop using that word or turn of phrase now. That someone has contaminated that word or turn of phrase, stolen it from you.

Alternatively, sometimes you have a word or turn of phrase and a few years later it’s everywhere in the press or on the telly. Has it slipped through from person to person and ended up being used by a powerful person or powerful organisation and now become common currency, all originating from you? Or are you just a conventional mind and others have thought of that word or turn of phrase, many people, and the mass of tide has ended by making that word into a common one? I mean, there are only so many words or turns of phrase that can be invented. Yes, it’s probably the latter.

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