5 Times in History When Words Really Mattered
Have you ever been in a situation when you argued with someone about their choice of words and they just dismissed you saying, “what difference does it make anyway?”
Did it make you feel frustrated?
Sometimes when you are passionate about a topic and have an emotional connection with it, you may assume that others have made that same connection.
The reality is that we don’t all come from the same background nor have we had the same life experiences. No wonder then that we don’t all react to words in the same way.
In today’s fast-paced world, it is common for us to be preoccupied with present concerns, neglecting to pause and look back in time. And when we see history repeating itself, we often wonder how we have failed to learn the lessons of the past.
“Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know more.”
Confucius
Words have meaning. Ok, you’ll tell me that’s obvious. So why then are we careless when we use them?
For one, we don’t all attach the same meaning to the same word. If you’ve ever learned a swearword in a foreign language, you may have had the misfortune of using it in the wrong context and invited unexpected reactions. This is because words do not exist in a void — their meaning depends on social context, who is using them and when.
In history, words have taken on powerful meaning because of important events or when mobilised to such effect by social movements. Here are five such moments in history when words made a difference:
1. (Post-)feminism
Aside from the debate about whether we are still in the era of feminism or whether we have entered a new era of post-feminism, no-one can dispute the importance nowadays of using gender-appropriate language. ‘Mankind’ was replaced with ‘people’, ‘human beings’ or ‘humanity’; the title Ms. preferred over Mrs or Miss, and so on. Times are moving so quickly that even the implied duality of personal pronoun use is fast threatening to become a casualty of the expanding gender debate. Anyone still adjusting is advised to opt for the singular personal pronoun ‘they’ in place of he/she to avoid sinking further into the proverbial quicksand and being tarred with the brush of gender discrimination.
The emphasis on change of form is not based on some aesthetic whim, but rather a push for equality in treatment. It remains of interest for us to monitor whether linguistic change here has indeed resulted (at least in part) in the perception of reduced discrimination against those to whom the new terms apply. This is based on (post-Chomskyan) sociolinguistics which asserts that language, itself a social practice, is best studied within the context of society, not just in theory.
Despite heightened awareness about language and gender (and some change in use thereof), the debate continues. Some even question whether changes to language will have any effect on gender bias. Part of this is due to our natural resistance to change, linguistic, social or otherwise. As is often the case, there are no simple answers to these questions. One thing is certain, namely that language will continue to be a key factor in these discussions, both as a vehicle for change and a theatre for debate.
2. Post-9/11
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter. Or so they say.
INTERESTING FACT:
This phrase first appeared in a book called Harry’s Game written by Gerald Seymour in 1975.
(Editor’s note: Coincidentally, I doubt this phrase would be used any more in this form because of the gender discrimination)
In any case, the term ‘freedom fighter’ never gained any real traction (see chart below from Google Books Ngram viewer), but the underlying sense of the saying certainly hit home, at least in circles that cared about justice and non-discrimination.
In the above graph, we see the exponentially increasing prevalence of both ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ after 9/11. The latter is easily explainable by the increase of the number of acts exhibiting the peculiar characteristics many have come to associate with these terms when used in common parlance, however the use of ‘terrorist’ as a label warrants further scrutiny.
Clichés aside, it is worrying to see that in spite of the lack of international consensus on how the term ‘terrorism’ should be defined, some feel entitled to label people as terrorists, even without evidence. Fair enough, one might say, linguistically, that the actor responsible for an act of terrorism should logically be referred to as a ‘terrorist’. But one has to dig deeper into the precise meaning and connotations of the word each time it is used. Over the last twenty years (and even before that), there have been many instances where people have been described as ‘terrorists’. A problem occurs when one notices an amalgamation/assimilation of ‘terrorist’ with a person from a particular faith, a phenomenon which has been both monitored and documented (see for example this link).
“Terror attacks carried out by Muslims receive more than five times as much media coverage as those carried out by non-Muslims in the United States, according to an academic study.”
By shifting the focus from the person’s deeds (punishable by law) to their identity, we are already on a slippery slope. But holding an undefined group responsible for the actions of a few individuals, this can only be unfair discrimination at the very least.
3. Civil Rights Movement
Time and again in history when a relatively more powerful group of individuals has desired to impose its way of thinking on less powerful individuals, words have been used as a way to denigrate, exclude and attack their identity.
The civil rights movement in the USA fought for the rights of African Americans. Part of that fight was to be treated equally, which meant no longer being subjected to words that stripped them of their dignity. Out of respect for the reader, I will not add insult to injury by repeating those words here, but the kind of derogatory terms used are well known (and regrettably some are still in use today).
4. Age of climate awareness
In modern times, environmental activists have struggled to create popular awareness of anthropogenic effects on earth’s climate, at least since the beginning of the 1960s. Part of this debate has been characterised by the use of different slogans. In the latest chapter and with the advent of Greta Thunberg and others, you may have noticed that the rhetoric used by activists has shifted from ‘climate change’ to the so-called ‘climate crisis’. This change is no mere coincidence. It is part of what some call ‘emergency framing’, a way to give a cause a sense of urgency in order to incite socio-political change based on awakened awareness. Still, some climate activists strongly disagree with this approach.
Also, have you ever wondered about the difference in meaning between the terms ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’? The terms are sufficiently distinct in meaning to warrant self-education by the speaker prior to use. You will be pleased to know that someone has already written an entire blog post on this here.
There are also those who abjectly refuse to accept the idea of anthropogenic influence on earth’s environment, ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They rather choose to attribute observed adverse phenomena to natural periodically recurring long-term changes into the earth’s atmosphere. Either of the above terms would be anathema to such people.
Whichever side of the fence on which you sit, again we witness words at the centre of a fierce struggle about meaning and ultimately the future of our planet.
5. COVID-19 pandemic
When the coronavirus outbreak started, the World Health Organisation (WHO) advised the public to adopt ‘social distancing’ measures. A while later, on 20 March 2020, a WHO official stated that the organisation’s preference from that point onwards was to use the term ‘physical distancing’, a term which encourages the maintenance of social ties in spite of the extreme circumstances, retaining within its meaning however the medical advice to maintain physical distance to avoid further spread of the virus. Nevertheless, kicking the habit has proven tough and many official commentators and politicians still make use of the term ‘social distancing’.
Again, what’s in a word you may say? Well only time will tell the real-life consequences of our speech.
Another phenomenon picked up on by several academics, thinkers and media commentators, is the adoption of a complex range of war metaphors by politicians in their statements about the pandemic. As Lise Doucet, renowned BBC war correspondent, delicately put it in a news programme a few weeks ago: as difficult as the current circumstances may be, they are not the same as during wartime.
Lastly, one has to wonder if we would not be better off using more positive epithets for the ‘new normal’ we are living in — some scholars and writers have already started an initiative to collect some. It is hard not to feel the latent psychological pressure evident in terms such as ‘lockdown’, ‘confinement’, self-isolation, etc.
“When a metaphor is used again and again and again, it really makes people experience something in those terms,” said Veronika Koller, a linguist at Lancaster University in England. In other words, people start to feel like they’re living in wartime. This can help governments gain public support for short-term actions that would normally be unpopular, like closing borders or exercising emergency powers. But for a prolonged crisis, it results in fatigue, Koller said. From climate change to cancer to coronavirus, the struggle is not a matter of weeks, but months, years, and decades.
These are only a selected few instances when words mattered in history. Even if we may disagree in our lives about what certain words mean or have meant in the past, I hope I have demonstrated in this post that words are never just words.
So next time someone dismisses your concerns about the use of a particular turn of phrase, it might be time to remind them that words really can mean the difference between dignity and disrespect, inclusion and exclusion and ultimately, life and death.
