Isn’t the function of words to say things and to say it with as much clarity and precision as possible? For a long time, those who write or speak have maintained the cult of the right word. This was to avoid vague ideas and imprecise sentences. And with them, these words which cultivate imprecision, vagueness or emptiness.
No one will blame me for spoiling this new year by warning against a certain number of these words which unfortunately abound in our media. Because, for a certain number of years, we have seen a proliferation of these expressions whose function was not to say things precisely, but to say them as vaguely as possible. Either their speakers wanted to conceal their thoughts, or they feared possible reprisals. Unless they simply had nothing to say, just spouting off fashionable expressions. It exists.
Unfortunately for the latter, words do not lie. After COVID-19, SARS and Ebola, the epidemic of the word “person” is certainly one of the worst we have seen in a long time. Not a day goes by without radio and television, under the pretext of “inclusiveness”, talking to us about “disabled people”, “hospitalized people” or “homeless people”. Without forgetting this absolute pinnacle of all these truisms: the “human person”!
It is no coincidence that, originally, the word person designated a theatrical mask. Isn’t this the word that Ulysses used to deceive the Cyclops? However, a smart guy – probably paid per word – has won the Holy Grail by inventing the formula “person in a situation of”. So here we are labeled “people with disabilities”, “people in hospitalization” and “failing students”. When will the person be “in a situation of stupidity” or “in a situation of stupidity”? At this rate, it will soon take endless circumlocutions to name the simplest things. Everything to distance reality: that of the “handicapped”, the “sick” and the “dunces”!
These linguistic convolutions are not just simple language tics. They are part of this political correctness that some, like the writer Allan Bloom, identified in the 1980s. This bad conscience of the American Protestant elites has since become a real degenerative disease which particularly affects the language.
I tend to think that it is through this perversion of vocabulary – which in some way creates ” safe spaces » linguistics where we no longer risk being bothered by reality – that Wokism has slowly gained influence without making any noise, to the point of corrupting our universities and our media. Because whoever wins the battle of words wins the war.
Take this resurgence of the word “inappropriate” which pollutes the airwaves and the pages of newspapers. Not content with being most of the time an Anglicism (“ inappropriate ), the word seems tailor-made to incriminate someone without having to say whether their attitude was simply inappropriate, impolite, indecent, downright abject, violent or even criminal.
We find the same artistic vagueness knowingly maintained in what is now commonly called “sexual misconduct”. What a handy word to accuse someone of without having to say what. The formula seems to have been taken from a Victorian society decorum manual. It refers to both a dirty prank and a rape. It looks like it was invented by lawyers in order to cast shame without being accused of defamation.
But what we sense most in these expressions is a panicked fear of the real world. The fear of touching the reality of things or of “flattering the cow’s ass”, former President Jacques Chirac would have said with his usual good nature. It will always be more reassuring to watch the world through a screen.
In France, we can no longer count the expressions used by the media to avoid naming these places that mass immigration has transformed into ghettos. Here they are described as “neighborhoods”, “cities”, “suburbs”, “periphery”, “zone” or “territory”. So much creativity to hide the simple reality and avoid criticism.
This same desire not to name the world explains the sudden resurgence of the word “hate”. It notably served to conceal the explosion, although amply documented, of anti-Semitism almost everywhere in the world following the October 7 attack against Israel. Hate may be “the winter of the heart”, said Hugo, but it can cover everything and its opposite. Because there are legitimate hatreds. Starting with this wooden language, both technocratic and ideological, misunderstood by the majority, which our new elites throw at us with “flexitarians”, “ecoanxiety”, “feminicides” and other convoluted formulas.
“What we understand well is expressed clearly, and the words to say it come easily,” said Nicolas Boileau. This battle of words may seem insignificant, but it is at the heart of today’s battles. Happy New Year anyway.