As a new parliamentary session opens, it’s time to unveil a new word, argues don berry |
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We need a new word in English, a new verb to be precise, to describe an
increasingly common linguistic phenomenon. I think I have the answer and I'm
pretty sure you will too before you get to the end of this piece.
Yesterday an online bank, First Direct, announced that it is going to charge
certain customers £10 a month in service charges on their current accounts.
Is this the first step towards an end to free banking? No, no, a spokesman
told Radio 4's Today programme. That's not the point at all. The point is "to encourage customers to deepen their relationship" with the bank.
Those targeted have balances under £1,500.
Just days ago, the solicitors' firm employing a lawyer who had
upset an industrial tribunal judge by wearing a veil said that it was withdrawing her from the case but this had
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| Absolutely nobody believes what is being said, and this includes the person making the statement |
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nothing to do with the
controversy over her wearing the veil.
What these instances have in common is that absolutely nobody
believes what is being said. And this includes the person making the
statement. The English language needs a new word to describe this trope
succinctly.
There is a long history of coining words from the name of the person most
closely associated with the phenomenon to be described, the best-known,
perhaps, being 'to boycott', named after one Captain C C Boycott, the shunned agent of a 19th-century Irish landlord.
Whose name might provide the word we now seek? Some clues: who said
terrorism in the West has no connection with the invasion and occupation of
Iraq? Who said that nobody has been given a peerage for donating to the
Labour Party? Who said he agrees with every word the Army Chief of Staff
said about problems in Iraq?
Yes, of course, it's too easy. Prime Minister, your legacy is secure. You
can have your very own verb added to the English language. 
FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 16, 2006
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