Humpty Dumpty and the word police

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“…There's glory for you!'

`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.”

It may seem a little trite to start a discussion about the serious issue of language by quoting from a children’s book – even one as famous as “Alice Through the Looking Glass” – but it seems to me that Humpty Dumpty’s point is important to this discussion.

I’ve always been with Humpty on the matter of words – at least in so far as we manage to get our meaning across. But it does concern me that an order of lexical understanding has grown up from a belief that words inevitably carry a cultural loading. That there must be a list - and ever expanding list - of words that we cannot use, words that might offend some protected group or other.

The proper use of words is compromised. People write badly by using the plural to denote the singular or through the soul-destroying use of passive language. All so as to avoid the possibility that we use a masculine singular to refer to someone who could be of either gender. As if this really matters in the order of things – in the desire to see women’s equality.

But all this is just annoying, limiting and slightly dispiriting rather than something to die in the ditch over. What should really concern us is the manner in which language has become a tool by which the powerful destroy the weak – unguarded comments be they about women, a polemical comparison of someone’s speech to that of a past fascist regime or innocently alluding to black people by reference to their skin colour.

The recent example of Greg Stone, Lib Dem candidate in Newcastle East, is a case in point. Under a pseudonym, Mr Stone posted some choice comments on the Guido Fawkes blog – perhaps ill-advised but not a hanging offence surely? However, to hear Nick Brown the Labour MP for the constituency, you’d have thought Mr Stone had been caught in bed with a goat, murdered his mum and run off to Morocco with a stack of charitable funds.

Or the endless resort of many MPs, campaigners and media hacks to accusations of racism, sexism or some other kind of dread discrimination. One slightly bufferish comment and the word police are down on you like a ton (or do we have to say tonne these days) of bricks. No-one’s actually been offended. No-one’s been prevented from doing anything. But the word police – motivated more often by power and spite than any semblance of genuine concern – are there and are not interested in what the accused has done beyond the instant condemnation for using the “wrong words”.

The existence of this word police presents a gift to the bully. Good men and women are destroyed by powerful men like Nick Brown because it suits them and their search for power. Local standards boards for Councillors do not raise standards but provide instead a platform for the bully. Allegations of discrimination are automatically introduced into employment disputes because the lawyers know they are treated differently and are more likely to secure a settlement. And the media loves a good: “Councillor in racist abuse” story – even when it’s nothing of the sort.

My words mean precisely what I want them to mean, nothing more, nothing less. If you think they are racist, sexist, ageist or homophobic, that's your problem because I'm not any of those things.

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