Five years ago, as we entered the first Covid lockdown, I wrote a blog (A new language for a new reality) about how quickly our language was evolving to adjust to a new paradigm, which included a lexicon of the new words that we had to start using in our everyday lives. Since then (and even before that), I’ve written here about how words have consequences.
And it seems that the current US administration fully understands this and has started to weaponise language to use against their perceived enemies. They have also started to ‘cancel’ words that they consider to be ‘woke’ from the US archives. The excellent writer Molly Jong-Fast has written an article in Vanity Fair (Trumpworld’s War on Words) that provides an overview of the way in which the meaning of language can be twisted for the purposes of propaganda and to further a government’s agenda. One example is using the term ‘free speech’ when what you really mean is, ‘You can say what you want, but only if we agree with it.’
Then there was ‘Signalgate’ (the story about senior US officials discussing plans to bomb the Houthis in Yemen on a Signal thread and somehow adding a prominent journalist into the chat). In their subsequent defence, they chose to hide behind semantics, claiming that attack plans were not the same as war plans.
Expanding the OED
While on language patrol, I also spotted a story on the BBC News website about how words and phrases from other languages are being included in the Oxford English Dictionary (Gigil: The new word in the dictionary for overwhelming cuteness). As the article, states, the word gigil (taken from the Tagalog language of the Philippines) is one of a list of untranslatable words that can help to fill lexical gaps in the English language. It means ‘a feeling so intense that it gives us the irresistible urge to tightly clench our hands, grit our teeth, and pinch or squeeze whomever or whatever it is we find so adorable’.
Another expression that made the list was alamak – a word used to convey surprise or outrage in Singapore and Malaysia. I don’t think either of these words are going to become commonly used any time soon, ditto the South African words that have been included in the latest OED update (‘Yoh! You’re in the OED’ – South Africa makes its linguistic mark), but they certainly inject some nuance into areas of the English language that are currently a little bald or bland. I reckon there’s a better chance of the Irish expression ‘act like a maggot’ (to behave foolishly) being adopted into the British vernacular (see ‘Spice bag’ added to Oxford English Dictionary).
However, this expansion of the OED provides a welcome and often colourful antidote to the weaponisation of words we’re witnessing on the other side of the Atlantic.
Words have consequences. Language is power.
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