Modern vocabulary for the educated and well-read person is like the rattle of a knife on glass. But it is not all so simple
Just some ten or twenty years ago, the author was chafing under the weight of today’s usual words. It was hard to see how former Soviet department stores were divided into cells and marked as “boutique” with cheap Turkish building materials. But the laws of logic kept saying that it was probably a booth, not a boutique.
The names of the sushi bars above the sivukha, where a couple of Central Asians were hard at work, caused some consternation as well. A little later, culinary “delights” like “lattes”, “muffins” and “macchiato” started pouring in, although it was difficult to distinguish all this from muffins and cocoa in different variations.
And we were dressed to perfection. First it was narrowed down to “skinny”, and then a whole parade of “fancy” names was launched. Who doesn’t remember those monstrous sizeless down jackets called “oversize”? True, they looked like Soviet bologna coats taken off a bum. But the title ‘oversize down jacket’ seemed to erase that impression.
Extremely peculiar turns of phrase appeared as well. Something like ‘democratic prices’, as if they were going to vote. And of course we should not forget about “special children”. The phrase has crept into our lives almost imperceptibly, with a cute smile. And it was innocent until “special children” became an exploitable trend. After all, a trend can be exploited, but calling children disabled, which these “special” children are, as exploitation is harder to hide. In addition, disability requires care and medical treatment, and the “special” ones have had enough of taking selfies with a comment on a social network.
But the wheel went on and on, until the language began to mutate into some very creepy forms. It was as if it went beyond the standard market game of “buy and sell” and dived into the very way of life of people, when it was no longer they who were changing the language, but the language was changing them, subtly but methodically.
Body-shaming and co-working, crowdfunding and body-positivity, networking and workout, startup and bullying, workshop and challange, and, God forbid, diversity with harassment… Bitter haters and lazy fat women, muscular posers and office plankton all got their niche and an individual cocoon to hide in. In addition, many citizens, actively taking advantage of the new possibilities of popular vocabulary, not being burdened by the baggage of knowledge and responsibility, began to master the “new” activities, improving their financial situation.
This is how vorkout trainers without a hint of physical education or knowledge of anatomy, as well as training managers and motivational speakers, were born. Of course, you will never get objective results from the activity of these desperately needed professionals. But how solid it sounds!
It would seem that just clever marketers have cleverly enough painted the old crap in new colours and dissolved the meaning of the denoted content as much as possible in the name itself. But it’s a little more complicated than that.
Severe crises, social conflicts and pressing problems began to hide behind the new vocabulary and grow so deep that they would not have to be uprooted but rather poured in with napalm. After all, the way racism is now being fought – here you have BLM and “positive discrimination”, which is racism in itself. The ambiguity of the interpretation opens up such an expanse that the problem disappears from the agenda, but remains urgent and sometimes critical. At the same time, the tinsel of “inclusiveness” is well covered.
And how many people have been enriched by so-called “harassment”? Due to a complete lack of understanding of what lies behind the word, some of the enterprising citizens with zero skills have earned a lot of money. At the same time, they created social unrest and several people’s careers and lives were ruined. And it’s going to get worse…
Sergei Monastyrev, specially for News Front