Though it could be argued otherwise, a case can be made for dubbing language humanity’s greatest achievement. True, the destructive power of the atom bomb is impressive, and the capacity to move about over great distances that the internal combustion engine provides is stunning in its affect on the sharing of knowledge, culture, and the mixing of the human genome. But language surpasses them both, and just about everything else, really, in both its mutability and its capacity to affect human decision making processes. What something means is, after all, the basis for all human decision making and with its power to clarify or obscure language becomes the key thing in all interactions.
Because language is such a powerful tool, I’m always troubled by linguistic dissembling. True, people use language in a variety of ways, and while there can be denotative and connotative definitions of words what troubles me most about linguistic dissembling is that the bulk of it passes unnoticed.
It should be said at this point that linguistic dissembling is distinct from lying. Lying is conveying one meaning when you know the opposite to be true. Linguistic dissembling is the concealing or diminishment of meaning through the imprecise use of words. Yes, I just made that up but it’s helpful to know what basis I’m working from here.
Take, for example, the potato salad we had with Saturday’s bar-b-que. Quite good, really; potatoes, carrots, celery, a little green pepper, mayo, and a little bit of mustard. Store bought potato salad the container for which was printed with the phrase “Quality Deli Salads from Giant,” Giant being the name of the grocery store chain. If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary (I used the U.S. edition), you’ll find the following definition:
- noun (pl. qualities) 1 the degree of excellence of something as measured against other similar things. 2 general excellence. 3 a distinctive attribute or characteristic. 4 archaic high social standing.
– ORIGIN Latin qualitas, from qualis ‘of what kind, of such a kind’.
Now, it may seem like pedantry of the highest order to object to the way the word quality has been used in describing the potato salad, but bear with me for a moment.
In the way it has been used, quality has been transformed into an adjective; it describes “deli salads” which is clearly the subject of the sentence (and yes, it is a sentence). And connotatively, this use of quality as an adjective works: it implies that the deli salads from Giant will have general excellence when compared to deli salads from other providers. But linguistically, it’s dissembling.
The structure of the sentence, forcing a noun to stretch to denotatively do an adjective’s job, is a prime example of advertising speak. You’ve seen it. Short sentences that require you to fill in your knowledge of the brand or get you thinking about a product causing your memory to form a connection between that product and that slogan or bit of text so that the next time you’re in a store looking for a pair of shoes or searching for an alternative to the $9 bottle of wine you aren’t entirely sure won’t offend your host you will make that unconscious connection and go look for that pair of Nike shoes or that six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
Very often advertising speak isn’t even really sentences. It’s phrases, clauses, words strung together to take up the shortest amount of space on a poster and capitalize on the fact that the human brain takes in color, shape, and text in that order when perceiving something visually. Advertising speak doesn’t really use the meaning of language to convey information but instead uses that meaning to make an association between a concept and a product, in short it builds a brand. Think about it for a second: if you’ve had any exposure to advertising at all in the past five years you probably have conceptual associations for each of the following brands:
- Nike
- Apple
- FedEx
- Coca Cola
- Dell
- Ikea
- McDonald’s
- Disney
Each one of those names brings up a feeling or lifestyle association. For example:
- Nike: Active, aggressive, individualistic
- Apple: Hip, cool, young, technologically advanced
- Dell: Reliable, affordable
and on, and on, and on. And while ad-speak is possibly the most deliberate example of linguistic dissembling, it’s really pretty harmless.
You have the capacity to resist the messages pushed on you by advertising. You can, for example, find out more about Nike’s practice of using sweatshop labor, or you could read about how Apple’s vertical management structure encourages an atmosphere of stomach-cramp inducing pressure among its workers, or you could just read Fast Food Nation and never eat at McDonald’s again (no, really, read it).
What advertising speak doesn’t do that other, more harmful linguistic dissembling does is narrow the connotative meaning of words to the point that they are no longer accurate in or are in direct conflict with their denotative definitions.
In its explanation of denotative and connotative definitions, the OED states:
…whereas denote refers to the literal, primary meaning of something, connote refers to other characteristics suggested or implied by that thing. Thus, one might say that a word like mother denotes ‘a woman who is a parent’ but connotes qualities such as protection and affection.
It is true that not all mothers provide affection and protection, many mothers do. Your connotative experience of mother may be neglectful, abusive, and irresponsible while mine may be loving, supportive, and reliable. The mere use of the word mother does not change its denotative definition (though one could argue that there’s a bit of linguistic dissembling happening by defining mother as “a woman who is a parent” as “parent” is one of those words that has different connotative meanings).
One vivid example of linguistic dissembling of the harmful type, and the example that was the catalyst for this essay, comes from a Washington Post Magazine article “Night and Day” which detailed how a woman named Jody Arlington formed both an identity and a life for herself after her older brother beat their parents and younger sister to death with a baseball bat in April 1984 when Jody was just 16 years-old.
The reporter, Laura Wexler, quotes of Arlington’s search for ways to cope with her grief and her guilt:
She [Arlington] immersed herself in the works of Primo Levi, Bruno Bettelheim and Elie Wiesel. “I was trying to understand the human psyche in extreme situations,” she says. “I saw that, given the right environment, we are all capable of terrible acts, but also great acts of courage and humanity.”
Now, I freely admit that this woman is speaking about her direct personal experience, and about an experience that had a significant effect in her life. Indeed, like any major trauma, it changed her life in ways so fundamental it’s virtually impossible to grasp its vastness. But let’s pick apart her statement for a second, “I saw that, given the right environment, we are all capable of terrible acts, but also great acts of courage and humanity.”
The linguistic dissembling occurs in the use of the word humanity as contrasted with “terrible acts.” Using humanity in this way implies that only characteristics dubbed as good – courage as specified by Arlington and by implication other qualities of the same ilk like kindness, compassion, and empathy – are human.
Are not those terrible acts committed by human beings? Is not the capacity to commit such terrible acts – death by beating, rape, genocide, other-species extinction – also a facet of humanity?
Why this type of linguistic dissembling, this narrowing of word connotation, is so dangerous is simply because it leads people to false conclusions. Human beings are capable of great acts of kindness, bravery, and charity but to ignore that we are also capable of great horrors perpetrated against ourselves and against the other inhabitants of the planet (by the way, the AP reported a couple of days ago that a major study shows that orangutans could be extinct as soon as 2011 all because palm oil is used in a multitude of snack and processed foods but also, largely, because it’s considered a viable ingredient in the biodiesel market) is to ignore a complete perception of humanity. Making judgments, then, based on this limited perception – i.e. that human equals only good qualities – is folly at its very best and potentially deadly at its worst.
The only way to combat this type of linguistic dissembling is to engage the brain, to ask why or what does that really mean when someone says something, to pull off the layers of assumption and, effectively, look behind the linguistic curtain.
You won’t be sorry you did…or maybe you will…but that’s another essay.