Language, like fashion, is trendy. And like those who rush out to buy the latest in clothes, some people just can’t wait to wrap their tongues around the latest in expressions.
For some people, this ever-changing vocabulary is refreshing and proof that the English language is alive. To me, many of the new words are sources of irritation because they are so often brought into being by political groups and activists and they are grabbed up by those who want to impress and be “correct.”
Therefore, I just about flipped recently when I was reading an article about a Canadian activist who referred to herself and others working for women’s rights as “strugglists.” What? I couldn’t believe my eyes.
This word is proof positive you can add “ist” to anything. I’m an apple fritterist, or a worryist, a sit-aroundist or a televisionist. If an activist can call herself a strugglist, then I can call her an aggravationist.
This has nothing to do with the worthiness of her cause, just the way she describes it.
It doesn’t take politicians long to gobble up any new expression they might hear and I think they do it because they believe it makes them relevant.
That’s why you get U.S. politicians saying the recent Los Angeles riots were a “wake-up call” for America. And in this country, opposition politicians like to say unpleasant events – you pick the one – are a “wake-up call” for the government.
The trouble with politicians using trendy expressions, however, is they often serve to show just how out of touch they actually are when they use them for two or three years after they’ve gone out of vogue. Remember “touch base?”
Another favourite of politicians and activists lately is “reality check.” They’re forever advising their opponents to conduct one, whatever a reality check might be. Does anybody know?
One unnamed party leader has more modern expressions than a cat has whiskers and he loves to use them. In fact, I believe he’s even started a word trend or two with some of the ones he employs in his language.
For example, like so many other people now, he loves to tag “driven” onto at least one word in every other sentence. Therefore, the economy is “consumer-driven”, the country’s manufacturing is “export-driven”, and the business community is “profit-driven.”
I’m waiting for him to announce that the transportation industry is “driven-driven.”
This leader also likes to use “broad-based” and “wide-ranging” but his favourite expression has to be, “at the end of the day.” It isn’t good enough to say, “in the end.” Oh no. What if the end occurs at 3 p.m. Something might happen after that. It’s the end of the day that counts.
One politician often in the news also likes the expression “fit”, as in “casino gambling and border cities, I believe, make an ideal fit in a business sense.”
This is how words can mean nothing. “Canadian industry and labour, both recession-driven, will, at the end of the day, see where the interests of each can make a nice fit,” might say the party leader.
If “stakeholder” was a disease, it would be the common cold. It’s everywhere. Almost every day, in my job as a newspaper editor, I receive at least one press release that talks about how the interests of all “stakeholders” will be represented, blah, blah, blah.
Sometimes, “holder” is left off and they talk about those who are seeking a “stake” in the economy, or the education system, etc.
I’ve lost interest in current Canadian issues of the day after listening to commentators and politicians say, for about the 10th time, that so and so had “ratcheted-up” the debate a notch or two to a dangerous level and that someone was going to have to “ratchet-down” the emotion or the whole affair might blow up. I wonder how many people talking about racheting actually have any idea what a rachet is and does?
Now, I ratchet-off the TV as soon as the talkers come on.
And then, of course, there are our beloved euphemisms which we are using with such frequency now I can’t keep up. Somehow, we have to put a good face on everything. Just this week I heard our justice minister refer to prostitutes as “sex-trade workers.” How’s that again?
But most of all, I want to know one thing.
What’s a “sea change?”
©1992 Jim Hagarty
