Our modern-day pursuits of hedonism, lifestyle and self-expression have resulted in some interesting uses of language. In close accompaniment to this is the language of marketing that in its essence often strives to make necessities out of luxuries in our minds.
So, the modern lexicon of language in common usage removes everyday descriptiveness and emphasis in favour of endemic exaggeration. “Satisfactory” and “acceptable” become automatically not good enough, it has to be “outstanding” or “fantastic” (with the slight hesitation and emphasis on the “t” in the latter). Things are no longer “competent” or “good”, they must be, “amazing” or “awesome”. In fact, we have populated our language with so much hyperbole that its true descriptive consequences are often compromised and somebody speaking in more reasoned, evaluative tones, is now seen as just plain dull. Given the current mental health crisis, it’s small wonder so many young people are suffering from social anxiety due to comparisons with others, where some express themselves in social media and elsewhere with such grandiosity that others simply find this absent and their lives wanting.
So okay, the pursuit of the good life and indeed marketing speak may be contributors but what is it at the core of humanity that makes us veer towards this imprecision? Are we so tired of the everyday that we must embellish? Equally when we go in the opposite direction and come out with terms of insufficiency or negativity, they are couched in similarly graphic terms often using metaphors such as “train wreck”, “cringe worthy” and the like. The Oxford English dictionary exceeds 3.2 million words with approximately 800 new words added each year. In most languages, the basis of fluency is 800 words and there is a tendency towards a much lower number in our expressiveness vocabulary. Words are often reduced to simple edited highlights of far deeper emotional and psychological transactions between people, which is why marriages fail, business partners get into disputes and companies fall out and litigate!
I am not being gratuitously circumlocutory here, but it does strike me, that the richness of the language has been reduced to a far greater populism. Equally I am not suggesting an Orwellian type of “good/plus good/double plus good” continuum to qualify our usage, but moderation in our language does often allow it to be far more descriptive.
We can also add in the fact that often descriptiveness in language is increasingly substituted with the liberal application of expletives where an “f” adjective is seen to add more emphasis over eloquence and tone.
Words have power to shape, influence, inspire and instruct. They can also be used to distort, misrepresent and embody emotional states over an appreciation of the true facts. Why is this important? Well in an era of increasing fake news and the ability for people to print highly visual, attractive and seemingly credible content, suffused with the language of popularism, we have a real challenge about the acceptability and appeal of credible information. It is often more complex, more descriptive and requires more thought in a world of increasing information overload. We have seen these factors play out recently with the ridiculous allegations, backed up by quackery, of inbuilt tracking and monitoring biotechnology in the Medina Covid 19 vaccination which is both technically impossible, and completely pointless anyway given that one’s privacy is even more easily invaded by the simple possession of a mobile phone and an internet connection.
Conspiracy theories, shallow appreciation of facts and hyperbole can be at best unhelpful and at worst the modern-day equivalent of propaganda used by far-right regimes in the past to exert influence. It is beholden upon all of us to become more informed, more balanced and moderate in our language and to recognise that we need to work far more on the message sent, recognising the multiple realities now that exist in recipient audiences.
We live in a world now where things that exist in cyberspace, a virtual, information-based, conceptual existence, are often treated with the operationalisation of something existing in the actual world. Aficionados of neurolinguistics and others know that the subconscious mind discriminates little between fact and fantasy. We are heading for a world where some people will inject disinfectant when an authority figure advocates it, will distort the elitism and privilege in society around half-baked conspiracy theories rather than look at the actual oppression in society and will avoid epidemiological science in favour of the rumour mill and word-of-mouth hysteria.
The Buddhists got it right with the notion of the eightfold flow approach, including right speech and right action, are balanced on what they called the middle path. It’s not sexy and it probably won’t sell more goods or services short term. It may mean you have to build relationships and credibility with the use of the facts over time rather than attractive and eye grabbing headlines and hype, but it is a far more genuine place in which to operate business and other relationships into the long term. Indeed, our politicians need to stop being ‘world beating’ and simply be integral, representing all, instead of the most powerful voices in our society. Instead of the language of ‘levelling up’, it may just be that a more integral position of being truly ‘on the level’ is where everyone needs to be.
May your day be really, really ‘awesome’, but it will probably just be good at best….
