Mind your language
AFTER hearing a reference to 'inappropriate groping' in a recent scandal I wondered what would be 'appropriate groping'. In another newspaper report, a boy who was an arsonist was said also to have 'a history of inappropriate sexual behaviour'. Sexual behaviour seems to be inappropriate more often than not these days. Under the headline 'Jail porn horror', the Daily Mirror reported a prison-service spokesman admitting that 'an attempt was made by prisoners to use a computer disk containing inappropriate material'. A writer in the Daily Mail, contemplating the young singer Charlotte Church, characterised as 'entirely inappropriate her decision to accept the Rear of the Year title, when she was encouraged to pirouette sexily for the world's cameras'.
Would-be humorous writers have caught on to this connotation of inappropriate. A feature in the Evening Standard spoke of 'the end of an evening when one of us wishes to behave inappropriately with our Mr Darcy'. In the Guardian a doctor wrote of orthopaedic surgeons at parties 'quaffing more beer and becoming sexually inappropriate'.
This weasel word is often used by bureaucracies and the corporate-minded to censure employees' behaviour. What the culprit has done is not described as 'wrong' or 'illegal' or 'prohibited', but as 'inappropriate'. Similarly, politicians can blacken their opponents' images by affixing to them the objective-sounding label 'inappropriate', which is in reality no more than a subjective judgment. 'It would be singularly inappropriate,' said Mr David Davis last week, 'for the partner of a government minister to be in charge of an organisation whose be-all and end-all is impartiality'. Would it? But would it be appropriate if the partner was in charge of an organisation whose be-all and end-all was partiality? It probably depends which party you belong to.
Such is the horror of the inappropriate that it can be held up as a shield to fend off unwanted inquiries. 'A spokesman for Sunderland Council said it would be inappropriate to comment because the dispute was between residents and landowners.'
And inappropriateness is even a weapon in the great zoo-elephant debate. 'Inappropriate social grouping' of elephants was denounced by the RSPCA. 'There may have been inappropriate practices in the past,' said a zookeeper, 'but we now have a comprehensive guide to their care.' What could be more appropriate?
Dot Wordsworth
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