Meaningless Words and Phrases
I passed a site yesterday where work to construct six townhouses has begun. They’re described as ‘luxury’ townhouses, presumably to try to fool the public into believing that they’re somehow inherently superior to the ticky-tack rabbit hutches that are the norm these days. ‘Luxury’. It’s one of those words and phrases that have become so devalued by overuse as to render their purpose effectively meaningless. ‘Luxury’ one hour car valet, ‘luxury’ wallpaper, ‘luxury’ cruise, ‘luxury’ fucking bog roll, all priced at ‘just…’, or ‘from as little as…’.
There’s a BMW showroom near to me that’s offering models with ‘executive’ licence plates. As an add-on, you can have a plate that reads ‘PR1CK’, to announce to the world that it’s possible for a BMW driver to be an even bigger cunt than anyone thought possible. ‘Executive’ luggage, ‘executive’ lounge, ‘executive’ apartment…
Bought any washing up liquid or shampoo recently? I bet that it’s ‘new’, ‘improved’, ‘best ever’, even better than last month’s ‘best ever’. You wouldn’t want that ‘ordinary’ stuff. Perhaps it was advertised ‘as seen on tv!!’, history’s most meaningless endorsement.
Mostly such debasement is merely irritating, but in recent years, it’s taken on a more sinister overtone in social and political matters, where ‘ic’s and ‘ist’s are now hurled about with gay abandon. If you don’t avidly espouse the cause of some group or other, you must be transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic or whatever. If you’re worried about levels of immigration or you’re anti EU, you’re obviously Islamophobic or xenophobic, and a racist and fascist to boot. Zealots have used this tactic to cow people into silence and thus gain control of the agenda. Ironically, such persistent, consistent usage over time means that the terminology has devalued to the point where it’s lost its power to intimidate, and is now widely regarded as cant.
I could go on, but to quote the late, great John Major, that would ‘over-egg the fucking pudding’. So I’ll close with my current favourite meaningless phrase, to wit, the ‘people’s vote’; no, let’s utilise one last meaningless phrase, and make that ‘the so-called people’s vote’. Let’s have another vote on EU membership because as we all know, the last one was purely for gerbils.
Nominated by Ron Knee
