'Word Salad' comes to mind; empty/vacuous use of language that is designed to confound, because it's related somehow. I notice it in Vermont in particular, especially since moving to MA post-flood '23. Under the guise of equity...weaponized empathy.
I’ve been interested for a while in how wokeness overlaps with cult tactics. Something cults do is termed “loading the language” - redefining old words to mean something new, and creating new terms. The language becomes emotionally charged for people in the group and it is how you signify you are part of the group. The biggest purpose this serves is to change your thinking - by condensing complex ideas down into these new words and terms that get applied to everything it literally simplifies your thoughts.
I thought it was interesting this is the same thing you are noticing in this piece. When you mentioned with sex and gender we don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore, and that’s the point - that truly is exactly the point.
Controlling language is an indirect way of controlling actual thought, especially if the "new" language gets imbedded in the culture. Many, if not all of the language changes were seeing are less "assertive" and final than the words/phrases they are replacing and more sexless and neutral (partner vs husband, for example) This, I think, is because society has, by an artificial evolution, become wholly therapized. Additionally, the culture has become increasingly avatar-like. The youth especially see themselves of blank canvas beings with nothing innate about them. Everything from their gender to emotions and sexuality etc.. they believe it something to be "put on" like accessories. The permanence of it only lasts as long as they "wear" it but while it's worn, any questioning of it is akin to "genocide." The language changes reflect a society that has decided everything is fluid. Gentle language is also an excellent cloak for authoritarian practices and for the last ten years in particular, we've had an establishment that has sought to replace ones natural and healthy instincts and emotions and thoughts with synthetic ones that advance the political and social goals of a corrupt regime.
I was going to point out this very thing but you've said it much better than I would. If I could add a general argument it's this: As a society becomes more authoritarian, it's language becomes more ambiguous.
The points about certain novel terms (or redefined terms) almost instantly replacing traditional ones are well taken. One I've noticed recently is the substitution of "people experiencing homelessness" for "homeless people". I don't understand what anyone thinks that improves -- how it implies anything different.
But a few of the terms Josh listed are actually long-established alternatives. For example, ratepayer is used, at least in Ontario, exclusively for a person paying property tax based on the assessed value. I've never seen or heard it used in any other way.
I personally bristle when I hear the word "homeless" used to describe people who are not homeless by accident or catastrophe beyond their control. Most of the people described as homeless are mentally ill who are unable or refuse to accept help, drug addicted, and often both. They are without a home because of myriad choices they've made leading to that condition. Some are homeless by choice, because they are grifters who prefer a life of mooching off the equally grifting (off the taxpayer) "social services" in any given location. They eschew rules of normal society and relish in the freedom a life on the street allows them.
My grumble about words is constant. I hate when people use the term "Humans" instead of children, parents, friends, co workers. I've seen it swapped in for all these words. Yeah, we don't have children we love anymore it's " I just love these humans of mine..." ugh. Are we Klingons now too??!! The other is "partner" instead of spouse, wife, or husband. I'm not in a business agreement, I'm married. But the thing is that changing language was fun and experimental rather than forced and dehumanizing. I remember when "nuke" became the colloquial way to say you were going to microwave something. It was funny but certainly we didn't force other people to use that term.
I first heard "kiddos" about a decade ago on the HGTV show "Fixer Upper". I don't know if they started the overuse of the term, but considering how the Chip and JoJo cult exploded, they probably popularized it.
I push back on this as often as possible in supervision with my students and interns. However, even my sharp ears aren't immune from stumbling blindly into the traps the postmodern deconstructionist have laid.
And, thank you. I never noticed the ratepayers shift, but I'll be on guard for it now.
Gawd I despise “unalive” (instead of dead) or, worse, “unalived” (for killed or committed suicide). And now we can’t tell the difference between non-citizens who are here legally in the country to help with farming and those people who’ve snuck into the country because they’re all “migrants.” Grrr. And (I am a type of editor for the DoD) I am not allowed to use third-person singular pronouns because they’re not “gender neutral,” even though “he or she” was introduced for that very reason.
Sara, do you mean in your writing, you are not allowed to use the words him or her? Or when addressing someone? Or both? Are these written rules at the Dept of Defence? (Is that what DoD stands for?)
"'unalive' (instead of dead) or, worse, 'unalived' (for killed or committed suicide)."
Usually people are trying to avoid social media filters that trigger on "suicide" and similar terms. Not that the filters can't be changed in an instant to include "unalive."
Realitycheck, I work on a Navy base editing mostly testing products, and one of the newer policies—which I am expected to enforce—is a ban on “gender-specific” language. I do everything I can to word things so that I’m not using “they” to refer to a single person. (Yes, Department of Defense is DoD!)
Beauty and aesthetics matter because they shape how we experience the world. While much of what we find beautiful or ugly is subjective, some things have qualities that make them objectively beautiful or ugly. You are correct this is why I gravitate toward certain authors, artists, or creators—they resonate with a deeper sense of what is truly well-crafted or meaningful. Recognizing these distinctions enriches my understanding and appreciation of art and life.
Wow, you are so, so right about this, as are your excellent commenters. Being older than you, I noticed this phenomenon a bit before you did and it was just as bad then. I cannot be sure, but this entire "language evolves" or "living language" bullshit might have started to really accelerate around 1991 or thereabouts. Why? Because that was when the first dictionary went online. (Apparently, OED had a digital version in 1989, but it was not "online"). Ironically, too, I was today years old (another brand new turn of phrase that has been instantly adopted mutatis mutandis) when I learned that fact, and I had to cajole the Brave AI with a raft of questions to get it to finally answer my question which I had thought was a simple one. Very weird.
Anyway, to add to the list of annoying and unnecessary terms that now one cannot seem to avoid, how about "proactive" instead of just yer regular ol' "active"? If you are proacting are you not simply acting? That's one of the first ones I noticed. More recently, although still a while ago is; "going forward". What was ever the matter with "in the future" or, "from now on"? I agree that these changes are not natural since they are so utterly useless and are of no practical value, and can therefore only be if they are "control experiments" or something along those lines. We are, after all, controlled by demons.
PS: good news, though: they're losing.
Happy New Year and may all your salads be food-grade rather than wordy.
"When we were in lockdown"; "during the pandemic". Of these, the first is to me the most appalling, that formerly free citizens were thought-controlled to accept their own imprisonment; that circumstances had rendered it a legitimate action and that we were cozily "all in it together". No doubt the still-masked long wistfully for those good old days.
The second phrase enables the continuance of the false dichotomy of "wet market" or "lab leak" thereby maintaining the utter lie of "a deadly novel virus". Excess mortality happened only immediately following the jab rollout. There was no pandemic, period.
I remember, in the early '90s, how the newspapers began calling us 'consumers' instead of 'citizens', and wrote a short essay on it for my political science class at college.
What’s becoming apparent to me with these ‘new and improved’ words is that they’re simply inaccurate, as they don’t literally describe what’s actually taking place. Am I really embracing someone physically or agreeing with an idea? Am I eating or purchasing if I’m consuming? If I’m leaning in am I about to fall over or am I concentrating on a task? If I’m caregiving am I voluntarily being polite or am I being paid to provide a service? This not only matters for the reasons Josh and others have outlined, it matters because, whether people are immigrating legally or illegally, we still want them to be able to communicate clearly!
I miss my late mother, a proofreader and editor. She especially hated ‘optimize’ and ‘prioritize’.
I'm also struggling to understand the provenance of and impetus for these ambiguous phrases you mention. I fear that what they have in common is a depressing undertone of passive resignation and pliant receptivity. "Take this whether you like it or not." No agency for you!
Now surrender, within your station or your suffering, to the will of God is a very old idea, but this looks to me like a sinister reformulation of that posture. It seems the natural outgrowth of a feminizing culture telling you to accept every ugly and degrading thing that comes your way, as you meanwhile submit yourself to the replacement patriarchy, i.e., the totalizing State. "Go lower, as we [the elite few] go higher."
In honor of your mother, I'm going to sneak in one complaint about a "merely grammatical" linguistic trend here as well, since it isn't totally unrelated to passivity...and because I like to bitch. In addition to being a so-called Grammar-Nazi, I am also a builder. In said capacity, I have never once "based" any structure "off of" anything else. Outside of fairy tales, you cannot build castles in the air. Despite this, I now hear people trying to do so ALL THE TIME. But nothing in reality has changed: you must build ON a foundation. Therefore, you must "base" a thing, or an idea, "on" another thing or idea..."based ON" or "UPON" is the only proper construction.
I don’t like new jargon. It’s probably the Luddite tendencies that I have.
I only take issue with “religious community/church/church family”.
There is a reason Christians use church rather than religious community. We don’t consider ourselves “religious”, at least amongst each other. We will use “religious” when we are speaking to people outside the church because it’s shorthand and the entire conversation isn’t one that can be had in a quick interaction.
Religion implies practices and rituals that are meant to reach up to God. As Christians, we believe that God reached down to us.
And the church is what we call the bride of Christ. It’s an older term than “religious community”.
I'm from a before place and time, haha, where "religious community" meant the nuns, monks, brothers, etc who lived in separate communities where their lives centered around their calling to the religious life. Their faith practices were the focus of their daily lives first, with other endeavors secondary to worship and praise.
When I worked in LA, it was torture!!!! Examples: Spirit Meeting Place; any hand sign to replace a word; I.JUST.CAN’T; Who did you?; Love You!!! x infinity; It’s TOO.... many more. “Lean In” was just becoming the “IT phrase” 🤮
Also, there’s a push to use “people-first” language. This shift is present all over the place in the Urbanist/bike activist crowd. Instead of “pedestrians,” it’s “people who walk” or “people walking,” and bicyclists follows the same pattern. What is less common is the use of “people first” language for drivers and motorists. This in my opinion has to do with these activist’s portrayal of motorists/drivers as “oppressors” and peds/bicyclists (often also called “vulnerable road users”) as victims.
Here is another example of language shifting and manipulation from those clowns:
The shift of automobile “accidents” to “collisions” and now to “traffic violence.” I can understand pushback in calling something like a motorist ramming a car into a crowd intentionally as no “accident.” In that case there was clear intent to use the car as a weapon. But that’s the exception, not the norm. Personally I use “collision” as that’s often the term used in traffic engineering, insurance, and legal professions. The “traffic violence” term is nonsensical.
At my job (public health agency), we were told to use person-first language. Then there was some disagreement within "the community" about using person-first or identity-first language. As an example: last I heard regarding the disabled, they were going from a "Disability Justice" perspective and leaving it up to each individual's personal preference. I give up.
I witnessed some of the infighting in that “community” when “emotional support” animals were all the rage. It was the disability activists, the ones who recognized the need for trained *service* animals who pushed back against those who tried to bring “emotional support” peacocks, snakes, spiders, etc onto airplanes.
The disability activists have also put a lot of criticism towards the anti-car crowd. It was entertaining to hear the anti-car crowd’s ignorance of all the adaptive enhancements someone can make to their car.
“Disability justice” is an odd ball. I almost forgot, there’s also “mobility justice”
'Word Salad' comes to mind; empty/vacuous use of language that is designed to confound, because it's related somehow. I notice it in Vermont in particular, especially since moving to MA post-flood '23. Under the guise of equity...weaponized empathy.
I’ve been interested for a while in how wokeness overlaps with cult tactics. Something cults do is termed “loading the language” - redefining old words to mean something new, and creating new terms. The language becomes emotionally charged for people in the group and it is how you signify you are part of the group. The biggest purpose this serves is to change your thinking - by condensing complex ideas down into these new words and terms that get applied to everything it literally simplifies your thoughts.
I thought it was interesting this is the same thing you are noticing in this piece. When you mentioned with sex and gender we don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore, and that’s the point - that truly is exactly the point.
This seems to be spot-on.
Controlling language is an indirect way of controlling actual thought, especially if the "new" language gets imbedded in the culture. Many, if not all of the language changes were seeing are less "assertive" and final than the words/phrases they are replacing and more sexless and neutral (partner vs husband, for example) This, I think, is because society has, by an artificial evolution, become wholly therapized. Additionally, the culture has become increasingly avatar-like. The youth especially see themselves of blank canvas beings with nothing innate about them. Everything from their gender to emotions and sexuality etc.. they believe it something to be "put on" like accessories. The permanence of it only lasts as long as they "wear" it but while it's worn, any questioning of it is akin to "genocide." The language changes reflect a society that has decided everything is fluid. Gentle language is also an excellent cloak for authoritarian practices and for the last ten years in particular, we've had an establishment that has sought to replace ones natural and healthy instincts and emotions and thoughts with synthetic ones that advance the political and social goals of a corrupt regime.
I was going to point out this very thing but you've said it much better than I would. If I could add a general argument it's this: As a society becomes more authoritarian, it's language becomes more ambiguous.
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” — Orwell, 1984
The points about certain novel terms (or redefined terms) almost instantly replacing traditional ones are well taken. One I've noticed recently is the substitution of "people experiencing homelessness" for "homeless people". I don't understand what anyone thinks that improves -- how it implies anything different.
But a few of the terms Josh listed are actually long-established alternatives. For example, ratepayer is used, at least in Ontario, exclusively for a person paying property tax based on the assessed value. I've never seen or heard it used in any other way.
I personally bristle when I hear the word "homeless" used to describe people who are not homeless by accident or catastrophe beyond their control. Most of the people described as homeless are mentally ill who are unable or refuse to accept help, drug addicted, and often both. They are without a home because of myriad choices they've made leading to that condition. Some are homeless by choice, because they are grifters who prefer a life of mooching off the equally grifting (off the taxpayer) "social services" in any given location. They eschew rules of normal society and relish in the freedom a life on the street allows them.
Your comment is so good, I read it twice.
My grumble about words is constant. I hate when people use the term "Humans" instead of children, parents, friends, co workers. I've seen it swapped in for all these words. Yeah, we don't have children we love anymore it's " I just love these humans of mine..." ugh. Are we Klingons now too??!! The other is "partner" instead of spouse, wife, or husband. I'm not in a business agreement, I'm married. But the thing is that changing language was fun and experimental rather than forced and dehumanizing. I remember when "nuke" became the colloquial way to say you were going to microwave something. It was funny but certainly we didn't force other people to use that term.
I first heard "kiddos" about a decade ago on the HGTV show "Fixer Upper". I don't know if they started the overuse of the term, but considering how the Chip and JoJo cult exploded, they probably popularized it.
I push back on this as often as possible in supervision with my students and interns. However, even my sharp ears aren't immune from stumbling blindly into the traps the postmodern deconstructionist have laid.
And, thank you. I never noticed the ratepayers shift, but I'll be on guard for it now.
Gawd I despise “unalive” (instead of dead) or, worse, “unalived” (for killed or committed suicide). And now we can’t tell the difference between non-citizens who are here legally in the country to help with farming and those people who’ve snuck into the country because they’re all “migrants.” Grrr. And (I am a type of editor for the DoD) I am not allowed to use third-person singular pronouns because they’re not “gender neutral,” even though “he or she” was introduced for that very reason.
Sara, do you mean in your writing, you are not allowed to use the words him or her? Or when addressing someone? Or both? Are these written rules at the Dept of Defence? (Is that what DoD stands for?)
"'unalive' (instead of dead) or, worse, 'unalived' (for killed or committed suicide)."
Usually people are trying to avoid social media filters that trigger on "suicide" and similar terms. Not that the filters can't be changed in an instant to include "unalive."
Realitycheck, I work on a Navy base editing mostly testing products, and one of the newer policies—which I am expected to enforce—is a ban on “gender-specific” language. I do everything I can to word things so that I’m not using “they” to refer to a single person. (Yes, Department of Defense is DoD!)
Are you effin’ kidding me?
Nope
That's very "concerning!!!"
muahahahahaha
Beauty and aesthetics matter because they shape how we experience the world. While much of what we find beautiful or ugly is subjective, some things have qualities that make them objectively beautiful or ugly. You are correct this is why I gravitate toward certain authors, artists, or creators—they resonate with a deeper sense of what is truly well-crafted or meaningful. Recognizing these distinctions enriches my understanding and appreciation of art and life.
Wow, you are so, so right about this, as are your excellent commenters. Being older than you, I noticed this phenomenon a bit before you did and it was just as bad then. I cannot be sure, but this entire "language evolves" or "living language" bullshit might have started to really accelerate around 1991 or thereabouts. Why? Because that was when the first dictionary went online. (Apparently, OED had a digital version in 1989, but it was not "online"). Ironically, too, I was today years old (another brand new turn of phrase that has been instantly adopted mutatis mutandis) when I learned that fact, and I had to cajole the Brave AI with a raft of questions to get it to finally answer my question which I had thought was a simple one. Very weird.
Anyway, to add to the list of annoying and unnecessary terms that now one cannot seem to avoid, how about "proactive" instead of just yer regular ol' "active"? If you are proacting are you not simply acting? That's one of the first ones I noticed. More recently, although still a while ago is; "going forward". What was ever the matter with "in the future" or, "from now on"? I agree that these changes are not natural since they are so utterly useless and are of no practical value, and can therefore only be if they are "control experiments" or something along those lines. We are, after all, controlled by demons.
PS: good news, though: they're losing.
Happy New Year and may all your salads be food-grade rather than wordy.
"When we were in lockdown"; "during the pandemic". Of these, the first is to me the most appalling, that formerly free citizens were thought-controlled to accept their own imprisonment; that circumstances had rendered it a legitimate action and that we were cozily "all in it together". No doubt the still-masked long wistfully for those good old days.
The second phrase enables the continuance of the false dichotomy of "wet market" or "lab leak" thereby maintaining the utter lie of "a deadly novel virus". Excess mortality happened only immediately following the jab rollout. There was no pandemic, period.
I remember, in the early '90s, how the newspapers began calling us 'consumers' instead of 'citizens', and wrote a short essay on it for my political science class at college.
This change is probably a result of the vast numbers of illegal aliens allowed to remain in the US by that time.
Yes! This is why I call it 'the alleged pandemic. '
Yet far too many remain credulous, saying the word as if there really was one.
I agree, Joanie. Do you have a name for this time period? I’m sick of using air quotes.
Happy New year 🎊 Josh. Let’s embrace some old words in 2025
What’s becoming apparent to me with these ‘new and improved’ words is that they’re simply inaccurate, as they don’t literally describe what’s actually taking place. Am I really embracing someone physically or agreeing with an idea? Am I eating or purchasing if I’m consuming? If I’m leaning in am I about to fall over or am I concentrating on a task? If I’m caregiving am I voluntarily being polite or am I being paid to provide a service? This not only matters for the reasons Josh and others have outlined, it matters because, whether people are immigrating legally or illegally, we still want them to be able to communicate clearly!
I miss my late mother, a proofreader and editor. She especially hated ‘optimize’ and ‘prioritize’.
I'm also struggling to understand the provenance of and impetus for these ambiguous phrases you mention. I fear that what they have in common is a depressing undertone of passive resignation and pliant receptivity. "Take this whether you like it or not." No agency for you!
Now surrender, within your station or your suffering, to the will of God is a very old idea, but this looks to me like a sinister reformulation of that posture. It seems the natural outgrowth of a feminizing culture telling you to accept every ugly and degrading thing that comes your way, as you meanwhile submit yourself to the replacement patriarchy, i.e., the totalizing State. "Go lower, as we [the elite few] go higher."
In honor of your mother, I'm going to sneak in one complaint about a "merely grammatical" linguistic trend here as well, since it isn't totally unrelated to passivity...and because I like to bitch. In addition to being a so-called Grammar-Nazi, I am also a builder. In said capacity, I have never once "based" any structure "off of" anything else. Outside of fairy tales, you cannot build castles in the air. Despite this, I now hear people trying to do so ALL THE TIME. But nothing in reality has changed: you must build ON a foundation. Therefore, you must "base" a thing, or an idea, "on" another thing or idea..."based ON" or "UPON" is the only proper construction.
I don’t like new jargon. It’s probably the Luddite tendencies that I have.
I only take issue with “religious community/church/church family”.
There is a reason Christians use church rather than religious community. We don’t consider ourselves “religious”, at least amongst each other. We will use “religious” when we are speaking to people outside the church because it’s shorthand and the entire conversation isn’t one that can be had in a quick interaction.
Religion implies practices and rituals that are meant to reach up to God. As Christians, we believe that God reached down to us.
And the church is what we call the bride of Christ. It’s an older term than “religious community”.
I'm from a before place and time, haha, where "religious community" meant the nuns, monks, brothers, etc who lived in separate communities where their lives centered around their calling to the religious life. Their faith practices were the focus of their daily lives first, with other endeavors secondary to worship and praise.
Josh - you are #LIT 🔥🔥🔥 #ONFLEEK 😂😂😂😂 PAY THE MAN!!!! SO 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
When I worked in LA, it was torture!!!! Examples: Spirit Meeting Place; any hand sign to replace a word; I.JUST.CAN’T; Who did you?; Love You!!! x infinity; It’s TOO.... many more. “Lean In” was just becoming the “IT phrase” 🤮
Thanks for this Josh. Now you have me paranoid about using the word, “embrace.” I’ll have to watch closely for that term.
“Ratepayers” is also electric utility speak for customers.
The term is somewhat accurate but it shifts the role of you, the person who pays your electric bill.
Meredith Angwin author of “Shorting The Grid,” and fellow Vermont resident pointed this out.
https://www.greenleapforward.wtf/p/who-is-really-the-stakeholder?utm_source=publication-search
Also, there’s a push to use “people-first” language. This shift is present all over the place in the Urbanist/bike activist crowd. Instead of “pedestrians,” it’s “people who walk” or “people walking,” and bicyclists follows the same pattern. What is less common is the use of “people first” language for drivers and motorists. This in my opinion has to do with these activist’s portrayal of motorists/drivers as “oppressors” and peds/bicyclists (often also called “vulnerable road users”) as victims.
Here is another example of language shifting and manipulation from those clowns:
The shift of automobile “accidents” to “collisions” and now to “traffic violence.” I can understand pushback in calling something like a motorist ramming a car into a crowd intentionally as no “accident.” In that case there was clear intent to use the car as a weapon. But that’s the exception, not the norm. Personally I use “collision” as that’s often the term used in traffic engineering, insurance, and legal professions. The “traffic violence” term is nonsensical.
At my job (public health agency), we were told to use person-first language. Then there was some disagreement within "the community" about using person-first or identity-first language. As an example: last I heard regarding the disabled, they were going from a "Disability Justice" perspective and leaving it up to each individual's personal preference. I give up.
I witnessed some of the infighting in that “community” when “emotional support” animals were all the rage. It was the disability activists, the ones who recognized the need for trained *service* animals who pushed back against those who tried to bring “emotional support” peacocks, snakes, spiders, etc onto airplanes.
The disability activists have also put a lot of criticism towards the anti-car crowd. It was entertaining to hear the anti-car crowd’s ignorance of all the adaptive enhancements someone can make to their car.
“Disability justice” is an odd ball. I almost forgot, there’s also “mobility justice”
https://www.untokening.org/updates/2017/11/11/untokening-10-principles-of-mobility-justice