WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS '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.'

George Orwell is justifiably renowned for his defence of the English language against a steady onslaught of mischievous euphemism, political corruption and manipulation. It is to Orwell to whom I owe my sensitivity to the use of language in general and the meaning of words in particular. It’s always worth keeping an eye out for words being gradually prised away from their meaning.
Currently the word unprecedented is slowly being transformed to mean unexpected, unforeseen or just of considerable scale. Thus on Friday I heard a politician declare “we have not seen floods like this for over 250 years, they are completely unprecedented.” This is pure nonsense, the sentence of someone who has stopped thinking when he speaks; he cites a precedent, albeit over 250 years ago, then states that the events described are without precedent. We know what he means, as I say, unforeseen and of considerable scale, (though of course whilst the latter part of this formula might be true, the former is not). He uses ‘unprecedented’ not out of any understanding of its meaning but because he thinks it sounds more impressive, is more likely to persuade. to silence objections.
All this may sound pedantic, but I do think it important to keep words attached to their meaning, for every time we loose a word we loose the idea that it carries and the language becomes consequently poorer. If, as looks increasingly likely, we loose the meaning of unprecedented what are we going to say when we come across a phenomenon for which there is no precedent?
A good example of this sort of process is the loss of the true meaning of the word 'critical.' It used to mean to 'intelligently appraise,' now it is reduced to meaning hostile or negative comment.
Still one thing I learnt from Orwell, when you do highlight these subtle shifts of meaning those who have their attention drawn cease to be tone deaf to the phenomenon.



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