Words and Stuff
‘Insidious’ is a good word. It means ‘treacherous’ or ‘advancing imperceptibly’, either of which describes so many terms used in public discourse these days.
‘Inappropriate’ is one such. You may think it’s a morally neutral term, and I suppose you can still use it to say, ‘Espadrilles are inappropriate for mountaineering.’ But when it’s attached to ‘behaviour’, things change. What once neatly described ‘the man who’ in a Bateman cartoon, today means ‘He put his hand on someone’s knee or groped or pounced or raped’, which is to say he was anything from crude to criminal. Its imprecision leaves open the most innocuous possibility while insidiously pointing to the most wicked.
‘Vulnerable’ is another word that seems unambiguous yet suggests something unspoken and possibly unspeakable. Is a ‘vulnerable’ person shy? Or old? Or young? Physically weak? Mentally disturbed? And vulnerable to what? Assume the worst.
That’s probably also what journalists want you to do when they use ‘troubled’ to describe companies about to go bust. Writs tend to fly if bankruptcy is openly foretold, but ‘troubled’ could just mean ‘has a few problems’. Don’t be fooled, though, when next you see it.
Other words share the imprecision of these loaded terms but not their coded meaning. Their sleight of hand comes in the form of tacit assumptions.
That house described as ‘affordable’ may be within some budgets but not all. That play described as ‘relevant’ may hold nothing for you or me, even if it strikes a chord for someone else. That painting described as ‘important’ may matter not a jot to anyone but a few dealers or critics.
With all these words we need more information. If ‘inappropriate’, ‘vulnerable’ or ‘troubled’, how or why? If ‘affordable’, by whom? If ‘relevant’ or ‘important’, to whom and why?
Verbal subterfuge, of course, is closely related to euphemism, and euphemisms never go out of fashion. Thus the decision to halt a rail project recently meant it was ‘paused’, not ‘halted’. When the stockmarket took a tumble it was a ‘correction’, not a ‘collapse’. The disabled are now ‘people of reduced mobility’.
NGOS are ‘civil society’. Vested interests are ‘stakeholders’. Printing money is ‘quantitative easing’. And passengers bumped off aircraft have suffered ‘involuntary boarding denial’. The rich are ‘high-net-worth individuals’. Fundraisers are ‘development officers’. Unripe fruit is fruit sold ‘for home ripening’. And, lest we blush, ballcocks are ‘float valves’.
Enter the world of true believers and the language can go even madder. Professor Michael Baum, a surgical oncologist, recently described in the Times the glossary he had to master when chairing a workshop on cancer care. ‘Alternative’ was ‘medicine that doesn’t work’. ‘Complementary’ was ‘medicine that makes you feel better when combined with medicine that helps you get better’.
How refreshing then, you might think, to hear a politician calling a spade a spade.
But now, alas, that turns out to be a matter of saying, ‘Brexit means Brexit.’ This is considered such a brilliant formula for awkward questions that almost every other political utterance is a variant of Doris Day’s maxim, ‘Que sera, sera’, or ‘Whatever will be, will be’. ‘Leave means Leave.’ ‘The deal will be the deal.’ ‘We are where we are.’
But actually I’m not: I’m beside myself. And in Scotland ‘No’ almost certainly means ‘We’ll try again’.
Today even the truisms aren’t true.