Randy Parker

Archive for the ‘euphemism’ Category

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“Common Era” leaves history behind

In euphemism, language, tradition on April 6, 2009 at 6:05 am

I was taken aback the other night while watching a show about Jerusalem. Ray Suarez kept referring to dates as BCE, Before the Common Era and CE, Common Era. I guess this has been going on for a while and I just hadn’t noticed. It’s more inclusive and PC, I suppose, than BC, Before Christ, and AD, Anno Domini (The year of our Lord).

My assumption was that non-Christian scholars had been offended long enough, had suffered for centuries, hands shaking as they were forced to add BC after their dates against their will, and they just weren’t going to take it anymore. But then I read where Common Era was coined in Christendom no later than 1615. And that CE can refer to Common Era, Christian Era or Current Era. This gets complicated in a hurry.

The point is fairly simple, however–to take Point Of View out of the terminology. Unfortunately, it takes the life out of it as well. Common Era may be nice and secular and generic, but it ignores a huge amount of history and tradition and denies the importance of the culture that invented the Gregorian calendar so much of the world lives by.

But who wants history in their history, anyway?

I guess I do.  My question is, what makes the Common Era different from the one preceding it–you know, Before the Common Era? The terminology may have changed but the basis of the two eras (Jesus’s birth) remains the same.

Doesn’t it seem just a bit silly (shortsighted, revisionist, egocentric) to uphold the idea of two eras without reference to why there are two eras in the first place?

If we can’t agree to embrace tradition as a valuable part of history and context as a valuable part of our telling of history, if we can’t agree to let the human story stand, if we cut every connecting thread to the past and undermine all sense of continuity,  then it seems our “Era” is about the only thing we’ll ever have in common.

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Can economic euphemisms be bubblewrap for society?

In ethics, euphemism, vocabulary, writing on April 1, 2009 at 2:26 pm

As a follow-up to my earlier post on euphemism, I want to direct you to an excellent Slate article by Daniel Gross called “Bubblespeak.” While the burst bubble that was our economy has brought an abundance of terms to the forefront––TARP, toxic assets, securitization–it has also created an environment in which Orwellian doublespeak can flourish.

In his humorous but unfortunately serious article, Gross demonstrates how “toxic assets” became “troubled assets,” as if we could send them to reform school and they’d be all right. Just calling them assets seems to be overpromising. He writes about past mistakes becoming “legacy debt,” trouble that executives inherited but seemed to have had no hand in.  And so on.

I wonder if this softening and twisting of reality is simply a manipulative tool of the powerful, or if we as Americans or even as human beings actually prefer it. I guess it’s a little of both. When we call junk bonds “high yield bonds” or call the widespread infection of debt “securitization,” or call subprime loans “nonprime,” we are lying to others, for sure. But aren’t we also telling people what they want to hear? Is there not some complicity among those who want to feel better about themselves and their decisions?

Certainly, when we (or our government) call worthless mortgages “troubled assets,” we are lying to ourselves. But now that all has been revealed, maybe it’s not so bad. Perhaps we are merely softening the blow, protecting ourselves with a kind of verbal bubblewrap, and, out of necessity, making our challenges seem surmountable and our darker days a little lighter.

Senator JFK once made fun of Eisenhower by attributing this false quote to him:  “We are now at the end of the beginning of the upturn of the downturn.” These days, that actually sounds pretty good.

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Euphemism can lead to copywriting sin

In Advertising, copywriting, ethics, euphemism, marketing on February 19, 2009 at 4:01 pm

For a writer in advertising, marketing, or PR, euphemism is a way of life. Fat girls are full-figured. Old people are in their leisure years. Used cars are pre-owned or, as a former client preferred, “new-to-you cars.” Gambling is gaming. If you write for the White House these days, you don’t just come out and say people are hungry; you say they have low food security. If you write for a lying politician, you say that he misspoke. And baring a breast at the Super Bowl is called a wardrobe malfunction. This is nothing new. It’s as old as language itself. One of my favorites? The Civil War, once called the War of Northern Aggression throughout the South, became afterward “The Late Unpleasantness.”

Some euphemisms are meant to make exclusive things more inclusive. A Christmas tree becomes a holiday tree. Halloween parties become harvest parties. Prayer becomes a moment of silence. And we use a lot of euphemisms for the sake of politeness in a civilized society. A good many bodily functions and their euphemisms come to mind.

But when does euphemism become lie? I came across a good example recently. A camera company marketed its products as “focus-free.” Listed as a benefit, this sounds good, like fat-free, hands-free, hassle-free. In reality it is a form of Orwellian doublespeak, designed to make you think a drawback is actually a benefit. A focus-free camera is one in which the lens is fixed. The focus cannot be adjusted at all, manually or automatically. This results in many pictures that really aren’t in focus.

You could say that literally the company is telling the truth; the camera is free of focus. But the intent? To make it sound like a desirable feature. The problem for even the most conscientious, upstanding, and ethical copywriters is that we don’t always know what we’re writing about. Copywriters don’t have the time and aren’t getting paid to be investigative journalists (and certainly not to investigate the hand that feeds us). If the camera company gives us a list of benefits to include like this:

Lightweight

5 megapixel resolution

Focus-free

then we easily assume (as we are meant to) that focus-free is a good thing and we list it accordingly. Put on an exclamation point–Focus-free!–and you really have something exciting. The result, however, may be an unhappy consumer. And a loss of goodwill.

Although a copywriter is probably better than most at discerning BS when he sees it (or creates it), there are times, I am sure, when we are just as gullible as anyone else. We have to have some faith in our clients in order for them to have faith in us. So we really never know how many times we may have misled our target audience. This of course, opens up all kinds of questions.

How culpable are copywriters? Aren’t we merely wordsmiths for the messages our clients want to create? And shouldn’t we assume our clients tell the truth? Usually a copywriter doesn’t determine the facts to be conveyed. He determines how they will be conveyed subject to the approval of the client. Notwithstanding, can’t both the facts and how they are conveyed add up to an “untruth?” Is the graphic designer less culpable than the copywriter? What about the account executive? What about the magazine that publishes the ad? As an independent copywriter, I have the ability to choose my clients to some extent, and I choose them carefully, knowing full well that my work may only be as ethical as the clients I write for.

Just like the consumer, however, copywriters are often given just enough information to be dangerous. I hope in all my years of copywriting that I haven’t led people down the garden path, and if I have, I would like to apologize. My intentions have always been honorable, and if “mistakes were made,” it was only because I “miswrote.”