The Word of the Year

    

                                                BRAIN ROT
   In my last post I mentioned the word of the year for 2024 which is shown right above. As usual, I don't agree and think there are better choices. First of all, if it is going to be the word of the year, then it should be just one word.
   "Brain rot" is the choice of a few Oxford lexicographers, aided by some public input. I like better the pick of the picky people at the Economist. As the newly elected president in the United States began selecting the new government officials, a better word of the year came to the surface - KAKISTOCRACY: the rule of the worse. This is from the Economist: 

   So the word everyone was Googling was kakistocracy: the rule of the worst. The first root, kakos, is found in few others in English. “Kakistocracy” is not found in ancient sources; it seems to have been coined in English as an intentional antonym to aristocracy, originally “rule by the best”. Having spiked on Google Trends the day after Mr Trump’s election, kakistocracy jumped a second time in the wake of these nominations. Searches surged a third time on November 21st, when Mr Gaetz announced that he would withdraw from consideration for attorney-general, suggesting that he was seen as the worst of the worst. The term was particularly popular in Democratic strongholds such as Oregon, Massachusetts and Minnesota....
   Kakistocracy has the crisp, hard sounds of glass breaking. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on whether you think the glass had it coming. But kakistocracy’s snappy encapsulation of the fears of half of America and much of the world makes it our word of the year.
   
    A close second for me, is a word from down under - Enshittification - defined by Australia's Macquarie Dictionary as, “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
  (By the way, if you missed the word of the year discussions, perhaps it is because you have brain rot. Here is the common definition:
"Brain rot" is a term that describes the supposed decline of a person's mental or intellectual state, particularly as a result of consuming too much online content that is considered trivial or unchallenging. It can also refer to something that is likely to lead to such deterioration.)

The Bonus: I often offer one, but this is a good one if you just want to stay online and not go Christmas shopping.
   "Enshittification" was my second choice because I noticed that it had already been proposed before the Aussies chose it this year. If you are interested in such things as these then go to the American Dialect Society where you will find all of their word choices going back to 1990. 
For example, way back in 2014, here are a couple of words which indicate we have made no progress at all:
columbusing: "cultural appropriation, especially the act of a white person claiming to discover things already known to minority cultures."
manspreading: "of a man, to sit with one’s legs wide on public transit in a way that blocks other seats."

There are also other words offered for various categories. To wit: Most Creative; Most Useful; Most Outrageous. There are even Hashtags and Emojis. 
    One of my favorites is in the Euphemism category and it is: 
structurally restrictive housing: solitary confinement (rebranded by the New York City Department of Correction.)
   Enjoy your day surfing rather than shopping, both of which contribute to brain rot. You might as well stay warm.
Go to the American Dialect Society and then click on "Words of the Year.

Watch Your Mouth!!

 

   Six years ago in late December I began a post that stumbled into the new year and in it I warned that the language police were coming. I suggested that you needed to "Be Careful About What You Say" and even about "What You Sing." I also indicated that "Name Calling" would be canceled and that the Moniker Monitors would change the name of your alma mater. All of this valuable information was cleverly concealed under the mystifying title - "This is NOT About Mariah Carey." Many years have passed, but if you click on that link, you can be among the very few who have read it. 

We Will Begin With the Benign

   For many years Lake Superior State University has offered lists of words which should be banned. It is a semi-serious endeavour I support since it suggests eliminating words for linguistic/grammatical reasons, not because of a Directive from the DEI Department. Here are the top ten for this year and this is the opening paragraph:

Stop resorting to imprecise, trite, and meaningless words and terms of seeming convenience! You’re taking the lazy way out and only confusing matters by over-relying on inexact, stale, and inane communication!

The TOP Ten:

1.GOAT

2. Inflection Point

3. Quiet Quitting

4. Gaslighting

5. Moving Forward

6. Amazing

7. Does That Make Sense?

8. Irregardless

9 . Absolutely

10. It Is What It Is

For a full explanation go here: Lake Superior State University. 

For comparison, here is the list from 2022:

1. Wait, what?

2. No worries

3. At the end of the day [this one has made other lists and is still with us.]

4. That being said

5. Asking for a friend

6. Circle back

7. Deep dive

8. New normal

9. You’re on mute

10. Supply chain

[My suggestions for the next list: "speaks to", "unpack" (except when applied to luggage) and "intersections" (except when referring to streets.)

The Stanford Situation

  Elite institutions are more concerned about the words relating to identity than grammar. Stanford administrators have worked hard on the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI). To access the website for EHLI, one has to have a Stanford logon, but the rationale behind it is described here: "Introducing the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative Website." I found some of the words on the list, listed elsewhere and here are some of them, so you will know how to talk in 2023:

Among the verboten words cited on the "Ableist" master list along with the preferred substitutes are:

"addict," to be replaced with "person with a substance use disorder";

"addicted," to be replaced with "devoted";

"blind study," to be replaced with "masked study"; and

"walk-in," to be replaced with "open office."

Among the verboten words cited on the "Culturally Appropriative" master list along with the preferred substitutes are:

"Brave," not to be replaced but to be dropped from use altogether;

"chief," to be replaced with "the person's name"; and

"tribe," to be replaced with "friends, network, family, support system."

Among the verboten words cited on the "Gender-Based" master list along with the preferred substitutes are:

"'preferred' pronouns," to be replaced by pronouns — since "the word 'preferred' suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference";

"ballsy," to be replaced with "bold";

"gentlemen," to be replaced with "everyone";

"he," to be replaced with "person's name of 'they'";

"seminal," to be replaced by "leading, groundbreaking," and

"tranny," to be replaced by "non-gendering conforming folk."

Among the verboten words cited on the "Imprecise Language" master list along with the preferred substitutes are:

"American," to be replaced with "US Citizen" — since this term insinuates "that the US is the most important country in the Americas"; and

"straight," to be replaced with "heterosexual."

Among the verboten words cited on the "Institutionalized Racism" master list along with the preferred substitutes are:

"black hat," to be replaced with "unethical hacker";

"blackballed," to be replaced with "banned, denied";

"gangbusters," to be replaced with "very successful";

"master (v)," to be replaced with "become adept in";

"master list," to be replaced with "list of record"; and

"white paper," to be replaced with "position paper."

   Stanford won (indirectly) a Sidney Award for this effort. The Sidney Awards are awarded by David Brooks of the NYT for good "long-form journalism." They honour Sidney Hook and one of the purposes of the award is to publicize good articles which is what I am doing here. Stanford didn't actually win the Sidney, Ginerva Davis did for writing about Stanford. The essay is found in Palladium magazine and the title of it is - "Stanford's War on Social Life." Stanford has strong allies in the war and their administrative troops are much like others elsewhere. Ms Davis writes:

“Since 2013, Stanford’s administration has executed a top-to-bottom destruction of student social life. Driven by a fear of uncontrollable student spontaneity and a desire to enforce equity on campus, a growing administrative bureaucracy has destroyed almost all of Stanford’s distinctive student culture.”

Even the WWE Is Awake

    World Wrestling Entertainment has suggested that announcers need to be more refined and eliminate certain words. I found some examples in an article that may be (one hopes) a satirical one. Two examples:

Banned term: Western Lariat. Reason: The word “Western” shows implicit bias toward eurocentric value systems and colonialism. Suggested replacement: “Decolonized Lariat.”

Banned term: Camel Clutch. Reason: It implies violence against animals, and reinforces negative stereotypes about the Middle East. Suggested replacement: “The Humble Maker.”

I don't have time on New Year's Eve to investigate this, but I did quickly find this article in WRESTLETALK: "FULL LIST OF BANNED WORDS IN WWE" (UPDATED). Among the words:
War

Interesting

The Business

Feud

Fans

Crazy

Interesting (?), but I am not sure this is all legitimate, but it is very difficult to distinguish between parody and reality these days.

Progress to Report

  Almost a decade ago, those associated with the Liverpool Football Club were given language guidelines and words like the ones above were not to be uttered. Looking at it, one can say that some progress has been made and it is likely that now even hooligans don't say such things. It is predicted here that "hooligans" will soon be eliminated.

("Kick It Out Chairman Welcomes List of 'Unacceptable' Words Issued by Liverpool to Staff: Words Such as "Princess" and Phrases Like "Don't Be A Woman" Are Included in the Guide Issued By the Reds," Independent, July 31, 2013.)

The Bonus: 

When I referred above to "Begin With the Benign", you probably thought of the song "Begin the Beguine" which was written by Cole Porter. If you don't know what "beguine" means, here is the answer: 

The beguine (/bəˈɡiːn/ bə-GHEEN)[1] is a dance and music form, similar to a slow rhumba. It was popular in the 1930s, coming from the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, where, in the local Antillean Creole language, beke or begue means a White man while beguine is the female form. It is a combination of Latin folk dance and French ballroom dance, and is a spirited yet slow, close dance with a roll of the hips, a movement inherited from rhumba.

If you would like to listen and dance to "Begin the Beguine" on this New Year's Eve, here is a version performed by Artie Shaw. 

Schizophrenia May Be Eliminated

 Expurgation (4)

   The title may be misleading. It is the word 'schizophrenia' that is likely to disappear, not the mental disorder. The sub-title may be puzzling since it refers to three other posts I have provided, none of which you will have read. They all have to do with arguments about the purging of words from our dictionaries, just as we are now also arguing about the elimination of names from our maps. The first is about the word 'Accident', which tort lawyers, in particular, want removed (I just looked back at that one and it isn't bad.) The second is, "Illegal Aliens,"since there are none to be found on this planet. The third is  "Mistress",  because there is not a corresponding term to define the person your wife may be fooling around with. This fourth one may be my last, because keeping up with these linguistic battles is a full time job.

    Schizophrenia has surfaced since there seems to be a stigma associated with the illness. I pointed out recently that the American Medical Association wants practitioners to avoid troublesome words like, 'vulnerable' and 'high-risk'. Now the members of the American Psychiatric Association may opt not to label someone as suffering from 'schizophrenia', and the diagnosis may be dropped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Those involved in the construction of the DSM are well practiced at this type of endeavour and in some cases have gone so far as to even eliminate the 'disease' - 'homosexuality' - for example. Those in the profession seem to be split about how to describe those with a 'split personality'.

  Clearly, yet again, I have tackled a subject about which I am not sufficiently credentialed. So, I will point you to the sources and let you decide this linguistic matter for yourself. The place for laypeople to begin is here: ‘Schizophrenia’ Still Carries a Stigma. Will Changing the Name Help?" Karen Brown, New York Times, Dec. 20, 2021.

"Many people with or connected to the mental illness approve of updating the name, a new survey shows. But some experts are not convinced it’s the answer....The idea is that replacing the term “schizophrenia” with something less frightening and more descriptive will not only change how the public perceives people with the diagnosis, but also how these people see themselves."

Good arguments for both sides are presented, including some mundane ones, like if the patient, loses the label, they could lose their insurance coverage. And, as Dr. Carpenter argues, "A rose by any other name would smell the same...“And if you make the change, how long until the stigma catches up with it?”

   Those serious about schizophrenia should have a look at the survey which is found here and the abstract is provided. 

"Are We Ready for a Name Change for Schizophrenia? A Survey of Multiple Stakeholders,"

(many authors), Schizophrenia Research, Volume 238, December 2021, Pages 152-160.

Abstract

"About one in 100 people worldwide are diagnosed with schizophrenia. Many people advocate for a name change for the condition, pointing to the stigma and discrimination associated with the term “schizophrenia”, as well as to how the name poorly characterizes features of the illness. The purpose of this project was to collect opinions from a broad, diverse sample of stakeholders about possible name changes for schizophrenia. The project represented a partnership between researchers, clinicians, and those with lived experience with psychosis. The group developed a survey to assess opinions about the need for change in the name schizophrenia as well as potential alternate names. We accumulated 1190 responses from a broad array of community stakeholders, including those with lived experience of mental illness, family members, clinicians, researchers, government officials, and the general public. Findings indicated that the majority of respondents (74.1%) favored a name change for schizophrenia. Most (71.4%) found the name stigmatizing. Of the proposed alternate names, those with the most support included “Altered Perception Syndrome”, “Psychosis Spectrum Syndrome”, and “Neuro-Emotional Integration Disorder”. Survey findings provide strong support for renaming schizophrenia. Most expressed hope that a name change will reduce stigma and discrimination."

   This issue was raised a few years ago, in this article which also includes many examples of how 'schizophrenia' is defined in other languages: "Name Change for Schizophrenia," (many authors), Schizophrenia Bulletin, Volume 40, Issue 2, March 2014, Pages 255–258.

I suppose the first order of business will be to change the name of the two journals in which these studies appear.

Those interested in the illness rather than the word should see:

"A Brief History of Schizophrenia: Schizophrenia through the Ages, Neel Burton, Psychology Today, May 4, 2020 and "10 Facts You Should Know About Schizophrenia," Michele Debczak, Mental Floss, Aug. 29, 2019.

The Bonus:

   If you are interested in words and those who used to be called 'crazy' or 'mad', have a look at: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (it was published in England as, The Surgeon of Crowthorne.) For a shorter version see: Chapter 7, "The Hermit and the Murderer" in his book: The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. If you don't enjoy this recommendation, I will give back all of your money.

Expurgations (3) Mistress

For reasons that are unclear to me, I have been offering you linguistic warnings so that you will not embarrass yourself. Perhaps I am doing so simply because our language seems to be changing more rapidly and the penalties for violations in usage are increasingly severe. In any case, avoid the word ‘mistress’.

The subject is broached by the very accomplished Paula Broadwell, West Point graduate, Harvard graduate, etc., etc. who you know only as the mistress of General Petraeus, who is generally described only by reference to his professional and military achievements since there is no corresponding male word for ‘mistress’.

The problem was addressed by the public editor of The New York Times in this article: “Is ‘Mistress’ a Word That Has Seen Its Best Days?”, Margaret Sullivan, March 26, 2015. After receiving many comments and complaints she thinks the word should go. Here is a portion of the article:

“I propose just such a shove to hasten the departure of “mistress” from news stories describing a modern-day woman having an extramarital affair.
I asked the standards editor, Philip B. Corbett, about the use of the term in Times stories. He responded:

‘I agree that “mistress” has a somewhat old-fashioned tone to it that isn’t ideal (though I don’t accept the argument that it necessarily implies a financial arrangement; it doesn’t. First definition from American Heritage: “A woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a man who is married to someone else.”)

One problem is that there isn’t really a perfect word here. “Lover” is probably a little better, and we’ve used it fairly often in the Petraeus-Broadwell situation. But “lover” doesn’t necessarily convey the idea that one or both partners is married to someone else. And it, too, has a bit of a romance-novel tone that isn’t perfect in a news story.’
A longer description is probably best, but not always easy or practical in a headline or a lead paragraph: “the woman with whom Mr. Petraeus, who was married, carried on a secret sexual relationship …”?

In a more recent article about the issue  in the Times the author concludes:
“As a student of language, I was sympathetic to her [Broadwell’s] cause. As I am a feminist, the double standard apparent in the way she was characterized was clear: He was the revered general who made a grave mistake; she was a psycho homewrecker who, as many often reminded her, had “brought the general down.” “Why Do People Still Use the Word ‘Mistress’? A Reporter Reflects, Jessica Bennett, June 7, 2016

I was able to find an earlier article about another ‘affair’ which also raised the issue of the word ‘mistress’ and here it is:

“A “Mistress” by Any Other Name: Can't We Find a Better Word to Refer to Maria Belen Chapur?” Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon, July 1, 2009.

“As we sift through the wreckage of the Mark Sanford [remember him? - the former Governor of South Carolina who supposedly was out hiking] media circus, one thing that’s become clear is that the English language is sadly lacking for nomenclature. Specifically — shouldn’t we have a better word for a professional woman who’s had a husband and a family and career of her own than “mistress”?

The word, after all, carries old fashioned associations with a “kept woman,” and it certainly has no satisfying male counterpart. If Maria Belen Chapur was a mistress to Sanford, what, after all, was he to her?”

The Associated Press now deal with the issue in the latest AP Stylebook: “The AP now suggest avoiding the word mistress because there is no male equivalent. Instead they recommend using friend, companion, or lover. The new entry reads: “Whenever possible, phrasing that acknowledges both people in the relationship is preferred: ‘The two were romantically (or sexually) involved.” “The Signified and the Signifier: AP Stylebook Rejects Your Misogyny, Says No More Mistress,” Eve Peyser, New York Magazine, April 4, 2016.

As you might imagine, readers of some of these articles came up with suggestions for a good male term. For example, General Petraeus could have been referred to as Broadwell’s “Main Squeeze”,  or “misteress” or “cicisbeo” could be used.

I gave this topic some thought since it is highly likely that “mistresses” will be discussed more often than, say NAFTA, as the U.S. presidential campaign enters even more ruthless territory. But, I realized that the issue is far too complicated for me - as most of these topics are, once I start trying to think about them. For example, if one does come up with a new word to describe the randy husband, will it be usable when the couple come from the same sex and one of them fools around with an option from one of the growing number of other genders? And what about related concepts? If someone is fortunate enough to turn Trump into a “cuckold”, how do we refer to his wife - as the “cuckquean”? You see what I mean.

Before I abandoned this project I did have a look at the OED. It is interesting that the first few definitions of “mistress” are positive as in - “A woman who has charge of a child or young person; a governess”. It is only when you get to number seven that you find - “Mistress -  A woman other than his wife with whom a man has a long-lasting sexual relationship. In early use: †a woman notorious for some act.”

I did, however, learn one thing when I looked at some of the early uses of the word and that is that Men have always been, and will likely continue to be, Cads. See below:

1675   W. Wycherley Country-Wife i. i. 5   And next, to the pleasure of making a New Mistriss, is that of being rid of an old One.