Meaning of sentence "People you are social distancing with"

Question

We have a text for kids with a box for a drawing that reads "People you are social distancing with", we have been thinking about the meaning of the sentence and we're not sure about the meaning, it should be one of these:

• People whom you are NOT keeping distance from (such as family members)
• People that you cannot see because you have to keep the distance (such as your friends)

We lean towards the first meaning, but we're o sure..

Some of you requested for the source to get more context, it's the pdf here (a time capsule exercise for students, page 2) here

Answer 1

I think it's the former because of the preposition with. If they had meant the latter, they would have used from instead, as in either of the following:

a. People you are being social distanced from

b. People you are social distancing yourself from

There's no way they could have meant the latter by using the preposition with.

Answer 2

It is technically ambiguous, but I think most people, by far, would take the former interpretation (you are not distancing from them; you, as a group, are collectively distancing from others).

I say it's technically ambiguous, because the only thing that is clear is that you are doing this activity (social distancing) with them. How you do this activity, and the role you play in relation to each other, is the part you have left open to interpretation with this sentence structure, and the term social distancing isn't quite well-established enough in the language to have built its own special relationship with the word with as so many other verbs have.

To understand this better, let's try a different sentence with a similar structure: I am playing chess with Jessica. Technically, this could mean:

• Jessica and I are playing chess, and Jessica is my opponent
• Jessica and I are playing chess with a third person (or computer, etc.), and we are working together to defeat them, even though it is traditionally a two-player game
• Jessica and I have decided to spend some time in each other's company, each playing chess against computers or online opponents, etc., as a shared activity, while talking and having beer
• Jessica and I are on a team going to some sort of team chess competition

Because chess is understood to be a two-player, competitive game, the former interpretation would be the default understanding, absent some sort of context that complicates it. If you were describing one of the other scenarios, you would generally make it explicit to avoid the confusion.

If you are social distancing, this is generally something you do in relation to everyone, not specific people. The reason the term social distancing exists is to make it clear that it is people that you are keeping your distance from, and if you are talking about specific people then the word social isn't really necessary. I might say my brother is in quarantine or that I am keeping my distance from my brother, but it sounds a bit odd to say that I am social distancing from my brother.

This, then, provides a context from which we can derive a default expecation of what with would refer to here. If social distancing is an activity that isn't in relation to specific people, then when I am social distancing with my brother, the default implication would be that it is an activity we are doing together in relation to all other people, rather than in relation to each other. And in today's context, the most natural way to understand that would be that we are actually making an exception and not distancing from each other, and thereby forming a household/bubble. So I would take the phrase I am social distancing with my brother to be a shorthand for I am social distancing, with the exception of my brother, as we have formed a bubble/household that acts as a mutual pact wherein we will do what we can to minimise our likelihood of being infected, with the knowledge that we would likely infect each other.

This ambiguity is very much built into the word with, and you can see that if you compare what you would think of as the default interpretation for each of these sentences:

• I spent most of Saturday arguing with Jeremiah
• I have stolen bread with Julia
• I have broken bread with Jedidiah
• I do not enjoy fencing with Junko
• I am WhatsApping with Josephine as we speak
• I served on the HMS Victory with Joshua
• I fought with Jericho several times
• I ran along the Thames with Jacqueline
• I was in a race with Jamilah to finish the project
• I circumnavigated the globe with Jacopo
• It was when I quarantined with Jasper that our relationship really took hold

In each of these, there's a sort of default expectation of what the with implies in relation to the activity. You can sort of visualise them, and in some cases there may be an antagonistic relationship, a friendly competitive relationship, and in others a cooperative one. In each case, technically other interpretations are possible, but they would all be edge cases and would require some context or disambiguation for them to become reasonable interpretations.

Answer 3

By logic alone, we can surmise that people you are social distancing with means people whom you are NOT keeping distance from (such as family members):

Your PDF's page to draw in the people is too small to include the balance—your friends, your classmates, your teacher, your neighbors, the mail carrier, cashiers, the rest of entire free world—from whom you ARE keeping distant.

This would have been better worded as people you are sheltering in place with or people you are social bubbling with.

Answer 4

I place this as an answer because it is so vital we all get it right. What the government means is people in the same domicile or living together. they do not distance from each other, except if one of them develops symptoms or tests positive, in which case that person ‘self isolates’ within the. dwelling.

You can argue about whether ‘with’ is the best preposition. But in the U.K., at least, the usage has been widely enough used and (I hope understood) that it is now an established usage even if it had not been before.

Answer 5

"Social distancing", in the Covid 19 sense, means staying six feet apart from those you are with, wherever you are, whatever you are doing. The child is NOT doing this with those s/he lives with but those outside his or her home. I see nothing wrong with the instruction in the PDF as written, unless one takes exception to ending the sentence with a preposition. But that's a different question.

Answer 6

We need some new terminology here.

I’d interpret the verb “to social distance” as adhering to the new norm of staying about six feet away, not touching.

“People we are socially distancing with” are those you see in accordance with the norms. I think “socially” works better here.

Then there are those with whom you are in regular close physical contact, like household members.

And then, people you don’t get even within “social distance” intentionally or unintentionally. They are non-contacts.

My guess is the game refers not to household intimates but to people one sees at the new six-foot norm.

Answer 7

I think it helps in clarifying the intent to restructure the sentence to avoid the preposition at the end. It then becomes "People with whom you are social distancing". Deriving the meaning of the sentence is further challenged by the lack of adverb after covering the noun-phrase "social distancing" to the verb-phrase "socially distancing". For me, when you do that, which I reflexively tend to do, the sentence becomes about the interactions: "People with whom you are socially distancing". Now, for me, in this corrected form the meaning is more clearly intending to convey the interaction between "you" and others: more aligned to the second interpretation proposed.

Answer 8

In this context,

'People you are social distancing with'

is short for

'People you are practicing social distancing with'.

The noun phrase 'social distancing' is now being used as a verb, rather than as a direct object of 'practice'.

That is, 'to practice social distancing' (Verb + Direct Object Phrase) has been shortened to 'socially distancing'.

Here, 'practice' means 'to carry out or perform (a particular activity, method, or custom) habitually or regularly' (Lexico).

The workbook wants the kid to draw a picture of the people she/he is habitually or regularly (practicing) social distancing with as a way to recall these days, people, and activity in the future--and especially the people with whom she/he has been (practicing) social distancing.

This means you make a drawing in the available space those people with whom you are practicing social distancing: it means those people in your life with whom you are together during this ongoing Covid19 situation. It means people close to you during this crisis, literally, as in you and they are part of your family or friends with whom you are doing this activity; not people you are staying away from--although if someone in your family did have the virus or test positive, it would not be wrong to include them in the picture. This is only an interpretation and not necessarily conclusive, the preposition with tends toward being close, not being separated.

For 'social distance' as a verb, see (MacMillan), whose definition happens to be 'to practise social distancing', using the UK spelling of the verb 'practice/practise'.