BRITISH RAIL has announced that second-class travel is shortly to be abolished. Or rather: British Rail has announced that second-class travel is not shortly to be abolished. The trick lies in the words, not the travel; everything will remain exactly the same, except that second-class will be renamed “standard”. The trains will still be dirty, uncomfortable and late, the food will still be disgusting and the fares will continue to go up; but second-class will be called standard, so all is well.
Shakespeare had something to say on the subject:
Or words to that effect. The poison of euphemism has worked through our language into our national consciousness; I have not the smallest doubt that the man who thought this one up genuinely believes that BR travellers will think they are getting better service by riding in a standard carriage instead of a second-class one. What is more, he may be right. But even if he isn’t, he will think he has done a good job.
There are many sights and sounds and ideas and events in the world that disturb us, that offend us, that we would rather not think about. There are many ways to deal with such phenomena; we can try to understand them, and thereby lessen the offence they give, or we can take steps to destroy or remove them, or we can conquer our fear or distaste of them. But what, again and again, we do in practice is none of these things; we change the name of what we dislike, and by doing so persuade ourselves that we have changed the thing itself.
Let us start with something simple; sad, but simple. We all have to die; most of us grow old before we do so. In growing old, we cannot help knowing what it is that is coming closer; yet we have a desperate need to banish the thought of it. So we first call ourselves elderly instead of old, and then, when that medicine proves not strong enough, we call ourselves Senior Citizens.
But we die nevertheless. I suspect that we die harder, in more fear, than if we learned to contemplate, calmly, the fact of death in general and our own in particular. The world we live in, though, decrees otherwise; no one shall need to face anything disagreeable, even if it is as inevitable as death.
Let us go on to something stronger. Once, we referred to people whose bodies were deformed or incomplete, whether by injury or genetics, as cripples. At some point, the word became, or was decreed to be, socially unacceptable, and such unfortunates were renamed handicapped. Further dilution was demanded, and they became disabled. More time went by, and even that proved too strong for those who decide these matters (who, incidentally, are almost never the sufferers themselves); now we must get used to the word “disadvantaged”. And it is not only people, but nations: for backward begat under-developed, and under-developed begat developing, and developing begat Third World.
It is offices, too. It was a long time ago (so long that people were still permitted to laugh at such foolishness) that the ratcatcher became a rodent officer; today, I doubt if any council employee in Brent goes by a title that would be recognised without a glossary. As for the moneys given to those who are unemployed or unable to afford lodging or food, we must use no word other than “benefit”. Nay, those who receive the benefits may not even call themselves poor; they are all underprivileged.
But does a man with no legs leap up and walk when he is called disadvantaged? Is there less drought and famine in the Third World than in the backward nations? Has the underprivileged man more money in his pocket than his neighbour who is poor?
All euphemisms are lies. They are lies told for a particular purpose, and that purpose is to change reality. But no man can change reality, particularly by doing no more than wave a word at it. Then why the pretence? Because reality is very often painful, and it is the very bedrock and foundation of our world that no one should be obliged to suffer pain. Nor, the rule continues, shall anyone be obliged to suffer poverty, ill-health, disappointment, loss, bad luck, failure or an ugly face; since there is no way of avoiding all these, or for that matter any of them, we change their names, and think we have abolished them.
Naturam expellas fur — oh, all right, not again. But just as death, I believe, is very fearful for those who have refused to face it before it touches them on the shoulder, whereas it might come as a gentle visitor, or even as a friend, if they had earlier learned the wisdom of understanding it, I am not convinced that poverty is more easily borne because it is called by a prettier name; indeed I suspect that the instinctive measuring of the reality against the euphemism makes the poverty more bitter; not less.
It runs throughout our world. When it is said that the IRA has “claimed responsibility” for another murder, should we not strip the lying euphemism from what has happened, and say “admitted guilt”? The reason we should prefer the truth to the euphemism is exactly the same as the reason I have given for my other examples; the false word makes matters worse, not better, the IRA less evil, not more.
Poor British Rail, to be belaboured with such a sledge-hammer when it was only offering a perfectly ordinary nut! And yet there is a principle at stake, and an important one. It is not necessary to call a spade a bloody shovel, though it does no harm to do so. But if you call it a manually-operated earth-turning agricultural implement, you have damaged more than the language.
“Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why then should we desire to be deceived?” Bishop Butler is not known to have been given any sensible answer to his question; but then, it was really a rhetorical question. Human beings, I have suggested, cannot bear much reality. Perhaps not; but reality can bear any number of human beings, and will do so, come what may. It was Marghanita Laski who translated “ Simple inexpensive gowns for the mature fuller figure” as “Nasty cheap dresses for old fat women”. No doubt the old fat women, as they donned their nasty cheap dresses, would have preferred the wording of the advertisement; but the translation told the truth, for all that, while the advertisement lied. Probably the British Rail spokesman who dreamed up “standard” for “second-class” thought he was being frightfully clever. But the standard carriages will not get us to our destinations a moment sooner than the second-class ones used to; not even, I may say, if he calls himself a spokesperson.
PS: I have just learned that the Post Office is now to call postmen “delivery officers”. Have they told the dogs?
The Times March 17, 1987
