RALEIGH – For their deceptive and harmful misuse of language, I’m not going to rake politicians and news organizations over the coals. I’m just going to restate limpidly some lexicographical parameters and reaffirm gently the propriety of parsimonious pellucidity.
In other words, enough with the euphemisms! The public discourse is now rife with them, to its detriment. We’ll never come to agreement on controversial issues if we can’t first agree on what to call them. It’s great to be polite – and nuance in the defense of comity is no vice – but this practice has simply become ridiculous. Allow me to elucidate . . . er, show you.
• Whatever you think of the practice of partial-birth abortion, surely no one can truly be pleased with the media convention of describing it as “a certain abortion procedure” or “a controversial abortion method.” What, are readers supposed to guess at what you’re talking about? Even the practice of referring to it on the second, third, or fourth mention as “what opponents call ‘partial birth’ abortion” is questionable. What do supporters call it? As I understand it, an appropriate medical description would be “dilation and extraction,” or more specifically “intact dilation and extraction.” Perhaps this sounds too clinical, or too ghastly (hello?). Too bad. Pick an actual description and go with it.
• When a coven of Islamist terrorists got arrested in Canada, the news wires initially had a devil of a time conveying the information that, well, a coven of Islamist terrorists had been arrested. The New York Times reported that the suspects were “mainly of South Asian descent.” Many reporters quoted Mike McDonell, a police spokesman, who said the terrorists “represent the broad strata of our society.” Reuters reported that police had arrested “a group of Canadian residents.” Come on.
• Before we decide what to do about illegal immigration, we might first decide what to call it. I’ve seen politicians and commentators resort to various euphemisms, but the most common – and the term most obviously cooked up by pro-immigration partisans – is “undocumented worker.” There are even some news organizations that forbid the use of the term “illegal alien.”
If you consider these alternatives carefully and dispassionately, it becomes obvious that the term considered most verboten here, “illegal alien,” is actually the most accurate one. “Undocumented worker” is absurd – not all immigrants are workers, obviously, and most who are working do not lack for documents, albeit of a counterfeit variety. Even “illegal immigrant” is not exactly right, because “immigrant” typically refers to someone who has entered a country to stay, and quite a few of our illegal “immigrant” population are really migrants who plan to come and go.
Just to be clear about this, I’m usually considered on the “pro” side of the immigration debate. I’ll happily use the term “illegal alien” to describe those individuals, mostly hard-working people who wish to become Americans in every sense of the word and who need more legal avenues to enter our country – but who, yes, should also have to pass rigorous background checks and job-prospect evaluations at a more secure border.
• The Charlotte Bobcats got a brand-new arena, thanks to (unwilling) taxpayers. But after the team moved in last year, attendance sharply dropped. Even as the Bobcats furiously slashed their prices in an attempt to recover, a team spokesman denied that anything major was amiss. “What we are doing is focusing on re-engaging the marketplace,” he said. Ah, well, that’s different.
• National Review reports that Harvard University has announced a new initiative that will use a certain laboratory procedure to seek cures to many horrible childhood and adult diseases. The procedure was widely described as “somatic cell nuclear transfer.” But readers and viewers who actually got the reference recognized that it was human cloning.
The English language has a wonderfully rich, expansive vocabulary. I am certainly an advocate of mining this treasure trove of evocative words – but only to add meaning or color, not to subtract or drain it. Those who inform and participate in the public debate shouldn’t use euphemisms to attempt to rig it. Me no like that.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.