Meaning of words is being debased
RECENTLY new words have been added to the British lexicon, and one notably assigned to Billy Connelly is “trousered”. There is some dispute over the definition attributed to it.
One could suggest that at present there are a few words and phrases that have sadly lost all their meaning and their use has been hijacked to self-serve the questionable behaviour of people in a position of power.
In my opinion, in recent times the words “sorry” or “I apologise” are words that are just empty rhetoric to cover up the wrongdoings of the person using them. Saying such words and phrases were once gallantly followed by the perpetrator metaphorically falling on their sword. These words and phrases appear no longer to hold responsibility or accountability; should they, therefore, be expunged from our dictionaries and replaced with new and more meaningful phrases?
As a nation and as a world we have become so much more bound up in emotion. Words like “hate” and “anger” have a very wideranging scale from mild annoyance to outright dangerous outcomes. The word “love” has been greatly trivialised in for example Love Island where the contestants would probably agree they see the word as a transient commitment in their search for fortune and fame. It retains its strength only when used in the powerful “devotion” that a parent gives a child or family member or in the tragic “heartache” that follows the loss of a loved one through death, disablement, or even the end of a once seemingly forever relationship.
I personally question this abuse of the words and their meanings when used in what I regard as heinous contempt by people in power, who on occasions try to negate their accountability in a tragedy by beginning their address “my
thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends involved in this tragedy”.
We have heard it all too often in comments on Grenfell, abused and murdered children, and drowned refugees to name but a few. The public, in general, sees through such empty gestures which render the use of such phrases almost worthless. We accept the misuse of words and phrases at our peril.
Their redundancy is showing at this present time, where people in power even at the top use the word “sorry” and “I apologise” with impunity.
Many of these call themselves “the right honourable”, a phrase that in my distant past could in the majority of cases apply to those in a position of serving our nation. How often do people shudder when they hear it today?
Television news must take some of the responsibility for trivialising their role. Why do we have to have a reporter standing knee-deep in water to present a flood or risking their lives on a stormy cliff?
Why when there is a tragic accident or heinous murder do we see endless rows of flowers being placed at a site? I can possibly understand direct relatives and friends leaving tributes, but I recall many years ago a cartoon in a national newspaper showing donkeys climbing off a bus to visit the site of the Torrey Canyon disaster. Such was the attitude of journalism then.
If, heaven forbid, a friend was killed in an accident, the last place I would want to lay flowers would be at the site of their demise. I would rather remember them in the places we shared and enjoyed or at a grave or where ashes are scattered.
The world is at many crossroads now. Is it not time to balance emotions, as for example Mandela and Desmond Tutu did, and to reclaim words and phrases that meant something when they were uttered? If not, we could find we become emotionless like robots accepting of much lower standards, which ultimately put humanity itself at risk. Glyn Scott
Barry