For the duration of my university education some years ago, it was repeatedly drummed into our heads by our linguistics professors that “language changes”. “Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive!” they would cry, whenever a student objected to a new word usage or raised some archaic grammatical point. And of course, we are all familiar with the idea—any parent who has tried to have a conversation with their teenager knows full-well that new words can be readily coined and old words become “cringe”. Since the first day of human existence, mankind has played with words and made up new vocabulary. Language is not static.
But in the real world outside the hallowed halls of academia, all disciplines must be combined with ethics. It is not enough merely to describe things; it is also sometimes required that we raise questions and at least occasionally declare a thing to be wrong. Language changes, yes. But it does not therefore follow that all change is good. One of the first events in human history involved a serpent who twisted God’s words, and ever since, mankind has been constantly tempted toward deceptive vocabulary usage. There is nothing inherently wrong in playing with words in a clever way to make someone laugh, or to make a point, or just for the fun of it. There is nothing fundamentally evil in changing a dictionary definition when the whole of society has begun to use a word in a new way. What concerns me is when words are used in new ways to deceive—to downplay or to over-blow a situation by using a word known by the hearers to have one definition, but employed by the speaker in a different way without acknowledging the difference. And in recent years, this linguistic tactic has confused the meanings of words with increasing frequency, so that it has become rather difficult to have a productive debate about anything without first defining every single term. The philosophical reasons behind this cascade of verbal gymnastics are not my focus here; suffice it to say that we have probably all experienced this at some point in some discussion with somebody. While I have a long list of examples in my head, in the interest of keeping open worm-cans to a daily minimum, I will mention only one at present.
In common usage, the word “inconvenience” has been generally associated with such relatively momentary circumstances as having to remove a massive pile of books and papers off the kitchen table before setting it, or needing to take a detour around a roadblock on the way to the grocery store, perhaps even putting up year-round with a neighbour’s tacky decorations. An inconvenience is when, in the middle of writing this, my keyboard acts up and I have to stop and figure out how to fix it. It should be rather obvious that a civil war, a destructive earthquake or a global pandemic is not a mere “inconvenience” in the normal understanding of the word. But I have recently noticed a use of this term in arguments to intentionally dismiss another human’s real suffering, and it concerns me. Some things that now seem to be lumped under the term “inconvenience”: divorce; suicide; rapid increase in childhood speech pathologies; rapid increase in mental health issues; failing grades in former star students; inability to pay bills due to job loss; denial of medical care to the sick; barring of family members from births, weddings, chemotherapy sessions and funerals; inflation and economic collapse; the list could go on. I am quite sure that if you talk to most any real person dealing with these things, they will not consider them “just an inconvenience”.
We are called to be truthful in our words. Word-play, hyperbole, understatement, irony and other such linguistic phenomena have their good and rightful place when they can be understood for what they are. But we should all be wary of using our vocabulary to easily dismiss other humans, to avoid constructive discussion, to deceive. If you see me using words in these ways, please call me on it. And in return I kindly ask, in the interests of linguistic and human integrity, that you consider your own use of terms, especially in heated conversations on current events. Language changes, but let’s not use change to destroy our fellow man.
