Like any year, 2021 spewed forth plenty of euphemisms. Years produce euphemisms like Spider-Man produces disgusting web fluid.
2021 euphs include community helper (a vigilante), elevating one’s pricing ecosystem (raising prices), glass facades that facilitate visual exchange (windows), smurf (a dead person), gifted pleasures (guilty pleasures), experience device (a car), volunteer (a weed), and interaction (shark attack). In 2021, pigs were rolling in lipstick.
The recent meeting of the American Dialect Society (ADS) celebrated (that might be the wrong word) a bunch of other euphemisms, including TFG, an abbreviation for “the former guy,” as a way to not say the name of Donald Trump. The ADS winner for Most Euphemistic was unalive, a very depressing term for a very depressing topic: people use unalive on social media when discussing suicide, as a way to avoid filters that might alert someone to the user’s mental health crisis. Folks, these are bad times, but please don’t unalive yourself.
My pick for Euphemism of the Year is a far more common term, and not new enough to qualify for the ADS award, but it was used so often that I must recognize it, demonize it, and maybe perform an exorcism on it, if anyone knows the recipe for lexical holy water.
The Evasive Maneuvers George Carlin Memorial Euphemism of the Year, and maybe the worst word of the year, was woke.
Here’s a sampling of recent headlines that use this accused word:
Black Democrats Are Fighting Back Against 'Woke' Progressives
Woke capitalism is a smokescreen
Fliers put on New Yorkers' vehicles telling them to leave Florida if they are 'woke'
Trump’s ‘Non-Woke’ Twitter Alternative Plans To Launch February 21
Air Force goes woke and allows the use of gender pronouns in email signatures
What will the woke cancel mob accuse JK Rowling of next?
James Carville: 'Stupid wokeness' is a national problem for Democrats
Merriam-Webster defines woke as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” But the above uses, and bazillions of others, show the term has broadened like Plastic Man, flat as a crepe and wide enough to smear anything that smacks of not just racial or social progress, but progress, period. Even progress might be too broad and specific for the current uses of this term.
The appropriation and deterioration of woke happened depressingly but predictably fast. In The New York Times, John McWhorter, Columbia University linguist and author of Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, looked at how this term originated with African-Americans, was borrowed by supportive white folks, and then weaponized by, let’s just say, not-so-supportive white folks, until it became the new politically correct. It’s all part of the euphemism treadmill, a lexical workout device that makes our words and spirits flabbier. As McWhorter describes:
A well-used word or expression is subject to ridicule or has grimy associations. A new term is born to replace it and help push thought ahead. But after that term spends some time getting knocked around in the real world, the associations the old term had settle back down, like gnats, on the new one. Yet another term is needed. Repeat.
Like politically correct before it, and alongside tag team partner cancel culture, woke is a lexical pillow that can be used to smother anything remotely beneficial to anyone. Republicans, Democrats, and anyone else who wants to maintain the status quo or drag us backwards can use woke to dismiss calls for justice, equality, decency, etc. When someone blames wokeness, the woke mob, or woke warriors, they’re spared from stating their true agenda, which might be, “I don’t think Black people should be able to vote” or “The masses should be ground into hamburger to feed capitalism.” When you hear woke, your BS detector should vibrate at light speed.
If only people would say what they mean. But then I’d be out of a job. So, never mind, please carry on with the societal collapse.
But seriously, happy new year and take care out there. Please stay un-unalive.
