Say what?
By Fiona Shaw for Ethos magazine: issue 10| May 2019
At the beginning of May, climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted: “It’s 2019. Can we all now please stop saying “climate change” and instead call it what it is: climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown, ecological crisis and ecological emergency?” Because this happened on Twitter, it was met with a barrage of abuse, questioning and links to fake science. And because this happened on Twitter, it was also met with a slew of other suggestions, from ‘climate clusterfuck’ to ‘ecocide’ to ‘the death of humanity forever’ (or something). Alongside some context, too: “Fun fact: ‘Climate Change’ is a term injected into the lexicon by GOP mega-donor funded @FrankLuntz, whose focus groups found it less scary & urgent-sounding as a term than ‘Global Warming’”, chipped in writer and director Melissa Jo Peltier.
And there sits our warning.
Pay attention to the semantics.
I’ve written about period poverty for this issue. Which raises the question, why has it become such an issue? And, undoubtedly, part of the reason it’s become a damning shame is because we don’t know how to talk about periods. About menstruation. Not the ‘time of the month’; or ‘the blob’; or ‘the painters and decorators’. In fact, I Googled this (I know…). Period-tracking app Clue conducted a survey of 90,000 people across 190 countries, compiling a list of 5,000 different period euphemisms. Including the Danish favourite, ‘there are communists in the funhouse’. (Thanks Knixteen — I will never think of Pat Sharp in the same way again.)
Now, all those lucky folk who know me will tell you how much phrases like ‘reach out’ make my eyelids twitch. Why bother, when you could just say ‘call’, or ‘email’ or ‘talk to’ — or whichever thing you’re actually going to do.
I am impatient by nature, so that sort of wafty, wishy washy language irks me. And — humour me for a second — one of the reasons I think Donald Trump’s message has been taken to heart by some voters is that he’s just so direct. Read his tweets (sorry again). His language is so stripped back and straightforward that it sounds transparent and open and honest, even when it might, er, not be.
But, while ‘wafty’ isn’t really a problem, intentionally misleading you is.
Language is brilliant. It is rich and varied and dynamic and ever-changing. But it’s also a tool, and that gives it great power. Go out and have fun with it and use it in lots of new and evolving ways. But think about it, too. If something doesn’t sound like the thing it’s being used to describe, why’s that? What is it hiding? Which words are hard to say? And why has someone chosen to do that?
Fiona Shaw is a publisher, editor and co-founder of creative agency Wordscape.
