Stop 'weaponizing' everything!
This issue is about words that rain down on us that are alarming - and telling!
Sometimes I feel as if our vocabulary is our cultural blender; without warning someone tweaks the dial to turbo power mode.
Social scientists tell us how words that swirl around us eventually define us. Have you listened to the news (or a teenager) lately? Oh, the verbal gymnastics! I get to have a front seat in the Linguistic Olympic stadium watching neologisms fly. My present beef is with what’s known as ‘verbing’ - turning nouns into verbs at random.
I have a revulsion for ‘weaponizing’ and I’m not even sure why. Perhaps it’s too smug a shorthand, a lazy way to avoid explaining something aggravating, toxic, provocative etc. I get that the Aston Martin in Thunderball was seriously ‘weaponized’ with 30-calibre machine guns emerging from each bumper. But this?
IS THE MEDIA TO BLAME? After all, they love to throw more stuff into the blender, weaponizing everything. Others adopted up the verb. Senator Marco Rubio rang the alarum bells in a press release that said “Putin will weaponize climate.” MIT researchers once warned of weaponized internet and financial networks.
Even Benjamin Franklin scratched his busy head about this way back, writing about new verbs:
“I find that several other new words have been introduced into our parliamentary language; for example, I find a verb formed from the substantive notice; I should not have NOTICED this, were it not that the gentleman, etc. Also another verb from the substantive advocate;”
Benjamin Franklin To Noah Webster: ‘On New-Fangled Modes of Writing and Printing’
Caught that? Parliamentary language! I bet you’re spitting out your coffee saying there’s no such thing. (I’m nodding in agreement.)
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Algorithmically speaking…
Last week my college buddies and I got on a Zoom call with our former professor, Dr. Thiru Kandiah, a linguistic expert now retired in Perth. He hasn’t retired his verbal dexterity, telling us he feels ‘algoridioticized’ by tech these days. (I had to write it down. Perhaps I should submit it to the OED!) What better way to describe this feeling of numb incompetence in the face of apps? Back in 1983 I recall him introducing us to the Sapir-Whorf theory - how language determines our world view.
Dr. Kandiah would be pleased to hear that just this week (on 1, Dec, 2022) this appeared in the New York Times newsletter I received:
Consider another neologism that Oxford English Dictionary featured just this week: Rumptydooler. Someone’s been weaponizing the Australian language, mate.
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And now, this: Words, Words, Words
I collect words like some people collect butterflies —or memes. Words with inbuilt ‘texture’ as I call it. They come useful when we discuss writing styles in my classes. Especially when nudging students away from bland words (you know: cool, and awesome, and lit) and cliches.
My favorite words this week are:
Brouhaha - so much more grittiness than ‘commotion.’ Where did that haha come from, I wonder. Buckingham Palace, no stranger to brouhahas, was the subject of my media discussion this week with this story.
Schmuck - does more damage than ‘idiot.’ Or even nincompoop, which is quite good, for a tri-syllabic word.
Sentient - There’s something creepy when you hear that sentient robots may be living among us. Isaac Asimov planted this seed in Bicentennial Man.
Mewled - One article I read described how Zuckerberg mewled (whimpered) about his algorithms.
Whup - I came across this fun 4-letter word used by a writer I follow, Ted Gioia, who explained Thus: “And there’s no doubt that TikTok is giving Instagram and other rivals a whupping.”
Not So favorite words this week:
Ghosting
I vote these words off the planet:
Yeet
Vibe
Weaponized
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MY CLASS eBOOKS are in their final stages. I’m always gobsmacked (if I may drop a weird word here) by the talent and the creative potential of these young students. I show them how to craft the pages of a book, starting with the covers and the Table of Contents, right down to the acknowledgements page! These books demonstrate the power of words that unlock those stories waiting to be told. Words, are, what Carl Sagan called funny dark squiggles in books.
“It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.”
- Carl Sagan
Squiggles, indeed. This week, they’re getting each other to review their books, so as to carry these reviews on the back cover. Here’s a small subset of their squiggles.
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Words that don’t mean what they say:
Cough drops, Nasal Spray - Aren’t what escape into the air when someone behind me doesn’t use his elbow or a tissue.
Before you go:
Rumptydooler has an Arizona connection, I just discovered. It’s the title of a 1964 book and movie in which a boy ends up in a ranch in Arizona. The word also means ‘champion.’