What do Belgium-style heatwaves and lynch by media have in common? Let’s take a brief look on the creeping devaluation of words.
“Belgium officially registered its first-ever September heatwave on Friday, as temperatures in Brussels topped 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit) for a fifth straight day, the country’s meteorological agency said … Belgium officially designates a heatwave if the temperature rises above 25°C (!) for at least five consecutive days, with temperatures going over 30° on three of those days.” (Source: https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/belgium-records-first-ever-september-heatwave/).
Yeah, right, I know – global warming, climate change, rising seas, wildfires … yet there are many who think it’s horseshit, and we should try as hard as we can to change their mind about it.
The task needs strong words to get their heads around, but calling a couple of days with temperatures ranging from 25°C to just a tiny bit above 30° a “heatwave” is a tad too much. I’m trying to imagine what people who regularly struggle with real heatwaves well over 40 degrees would say if they read this. I bet they would laugh their asses off.
We really should call a spade a spade. Twenty-five to thirty degrees is a fairly decent temperature, and I don’t think even the Belgians consider it hot. So, where the fuck, does the heat come in?
Another example.
I don’t know how it works in the English-speaking world, but in Slovakia the expression “mediálny lynč”, which roughly translates as “lynch by media”, or “media lynching”, has become a popular phrase used by politicians and other public figures, (as Nataša Holinová writes in her column – available in Slovak only at https://komentare.sme.sk/c/23214456/ked-sa-politici-tvaria-ze-su-nekritizovatelni.html – mostly conservative politicians and public officials facing criminal prosecution) to defend against, more often than not, legitimate criticism from journalists.
The dictionary definition of the verb lynch is “to punish (a person) without legal process or authority, especially by hanging, for a perceived offense or as an act of bigotry” (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lynch), with such synonyms as hang, kill, execute, put to death (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/lynch). To liken being criticised to being killed by a mob literally for nothing is most inappropriate.
To make myself clear, I’m not so much talking about climate or heat or even lynching here as I’m about using the right words to describe our reality.
Words have always been a powerful weapon that can make or break the lives of individuals and communities and change the fate of nations, for better or for worse. Especially now, when words can spread so easily, we should be more careful how we use them. For if we strip them of their true meaning, if we continue to use “stronger” words than the context really requires, we may all one day end up like the boy who cried wolf.