Who Needs George Orwell?

Last updated: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:01:00 GMT

You do, comrade.

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: dull lives need hyperbole.

I found it interesting, during the reporting of the effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004-12-26, how many people used the same word: devastated. And it wasn't just people who had experienced the tsunami, or been in any real way affected by it; these were vox pop reports from chimps on the street.

Pretty soon, everything was "devastating." The outcome of a football match, the loss of a dog. Everything left people feeling the same way.

Well, it didn't, not really, it's just that "devastated" happened to be our favourite rendering of double-plus-ungood at the time.

Though it shouldn't, it surprises me how homogeneous our use of language can be on this isle, despite our famed variety of accents and dialects. But it's not static -- it can take just a matter of weeks for word to fall into favour, overuse and abuse. We converge quickly.

Try injecting a word into conversations at work, see how long it takes before someone starts parrotting it back at you.

The reports tonight about the loss of thousands of jobs after the collapse of Rover would indicate that devastation is finally falling by the wayside, and the new flavour of favour is disgust.