Misusing Language

a minor rant

George Orwell had some advice about writing.

“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

It’s easy to find that sentiment expressed in various ways.

Mark Twain, for example, said “Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.”

In short the meaning, whether from Orwell, or Twain, or anyone else, is simple.

Don’t use big words when a perfectly good small word says the same thing.

I was on threads and went down a proverbial rabbit hole. A young lady was in a video. Briefly, she was talking about people idolizing a convicted murderer who had a swastika tattoo on his face. She was obvious about her disdain of such behavior and idolatry.

I listened to her and my reaction was, okay, but huh? Yeah, whoever she was talking about is a bad, even horrible, person. But I got distracted by her presentation, specifically her use of some words.

She said the guy “unalived two women.” He then tried to “unalive” his girlfriend. He was, according the speaker a “serial unaliver”

Later in the video she said he acted “bruthlessly” toward his victims.

Then she lit in on her “mutuals” because they were “commenting things” about the guy and his trial.

According the Oxford English Dictionary, “unalive” is indeed a word. It first appeared in print in 1820 as an adjective. Somehow or another, TikTok and other social media has decided that posts about killing and suicide pose a great threat. To bypass social media censorship people now use the word as a verb and a noun.

Thus to translate what the lady was trying to say, the guy killed two women and tried to murder his girlfriend. And, while no Ted Bundy, the guy by definition is a serial killer.

The woman states at the beginning of the video that she is literally shaking. I owe her mashup of “brutally” and “ruthlessly” into “bruthlessly” to that.

When she mentions her “mutuals” I am assuming she means her friends or followers on social media and not mutual funds that she may be invested in.

I don’t know what her friends were saying, but people say things, they don’t comment things as far as I know.

Language changes over time in meaning and usage. New words come in and old words fade out. Nobody knew what an “astronaut” was until it was first used to describe a person in space. I don’t know if anybody still owns an “icebox” to store food in their kitchen. There are many similar words nobody uses much anymore, if at all.

Sometimes, though, when a reader or listener gets distracted by words that are not familiar or simply don’t make sense, communication is lost.

To the use a small word rule, I’d add don’t make stuff up.