Sunday, 1 February 2009

When Is 'New' New ?.

Its interesting when you think about it, but when does something stop being new ?. A newborn baby seems to stop being newborn a few days after its birth, but a new car can still be referred to as being new for sometime after its purchase. Something similar seems to be the case when describing a recently aquired partner in a relationship, or a new house.

A concept of newness that seems to annoy some people is when a work colleague, trying to avoid responsibility for not carrying out a task, or carrying it out wrongly, states, 'but I am only new here' and it then turns out that they have been in their post for a couple of years or so.

Newness does indeed seem to be a very flexible concept.

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