In these times we are rightly encouraged to appreciate the work of the “frontline” staff of the NHS and other essential services. But does it make sense to apply military metaphors to medicine?
First recorded in the Earl of Orrery’s 1677 A Treatise of the Art of War, the phrase “front line” refers to the forwardmost part of an army, at which point it might be engaged by the enemy. Made gruesomely popular by the trench warfare of the first world war, the adjectival “front-line” also then came to mean those of an organisation’s workers who directly engaged with customers, or ideas that were in the vanguard of thinking, as in “frontline research” or even “frontline fashion”.
So “frontline” is not an exclusively bellicose term. Some medics do indeed speak of being in a “war” against Covid-19, but if this is a war then the enemy is already behind our lines, and you don’t have to be on the front line to become a casualty. More cheeringly, though, “frontline” can also refer to the melodic soloists of a jazz band, and we can all agree that doctors and nurses are presently our star performers.
• Steven Poole’s A Word for Every Day of the Year is published by Quercus.
