Elton John observed that ‘sorry seems to be the hardest word’. Sorry to disagree, Sir E, but for many of us it seems to be the easiest word, one which readily trips off our lips in myriads of situations.
- Someone bumps into you or gets in your way. ‘Sorry,’ you smile.
- You disagree with someone’s opinion. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t agree,’ you say.
- You want to speak to someone. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ you begin.
People Pleaser People Person People Skills — that’s a whole lot of P’s, nearly in the same league as the tongue-twister about Peter Piper and his Pickled Peppers. A proliferation (darn, there it is again) of the P word is inevitable in discussions about communication as we judge and categorise ourselves and others according to the style and nature of our personal interactions.
Our lives can be enhanced by virtual assistants such as Alexa and Siri and even that bossy satnav guide who may well have an individual name, chosen with as much thought as we give to naming our pets. With the stroke of a key, we can buddy up with ‘The AI companion who cares’, as offered by a recent software advertisement.
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Way back when, there wasn’t that much discussion about bragging or boasting. It was regarded by and large as A Bad Thing. At the slightest indication that you might be ‘blowing your own trumpet’ or ‘tooting your horn’, you would be firmly put in your place with a reminder that ‘self -praise stinks’ or a warning about becoming ‘too big for your boots’.
We’re talking about the dark ages, of course, when self-esteem wasn’t a familiar concept and we weren’t encouraged to boost our sense of self-worth by identifying our strong points and achievements, let alone sharing them with others.
What’s one of the things we ask about a person we meet for the first time? More often than not, we want to know what their job is. It’s an automatic question and it sounds harmless. However, the easy use of the question can be misleading. It isn’t simply a question about how a person occupies their working hours.
The answer prompts us to consider, consciously or otherwise, details about the person’s level of income, education, social status, interests, future prospects. All this from a simple ‘I’m a…’ When it comes down to it, we haven’t come that far from the era of Jane Austen. Only the details differ, and sometimes even they are the same
You know what a boomerang is. It’s a curved piece of wood which, when thrown, returns to the thrower. It is strongly associated with Australia. Used in a variety of contexts, these days mainly recreational, the boomerang has found a place in our collective consciousness and its handiness as a metaphor can be seen in a range of expressions in everyday use.
Our ready use of the word and our general understanding that the ‘boomerang effect’ describes something that rebounds and can flatten and mask the impact of the phrase. The appealing artefact, a smooth and pleasingly tactile homing device, can’t have too much of a negative impact, right?
The digital age, or just life, as Young Persons of tender years call it, has generated a new vocabulary of expressions, phrases, acronyms, invented and portmanteau words. Much of our spoken and written communication would be unintelligible to previous generations (as indeed it can be to ourselves).
Language has bent and adapted to meet new needs in ways which at best are clever, lively, entertaining, and at worst are ugly,clumsy and misleading. Particularly problematic are expressions which mask the reality of what they are describing by seeming to legitimise and endorse behaviour, which, well let’s say, isn’t great.