Mind your language
A NEW Church of England report has pointed out that some Christians fear that the so-called Toronto Blessing might be the work of the devil. I can't say, for I avoid such occasions like the devil, not out of fear of satanism but out of embarrassment.
Anyway what I was interested in was the title of the C of E report: The Toron- to Experience. Just a few days before, Peter Mandelson had, with a great fan- fare, given the Millennium Exhibition a new name: the Millennium Experience. Indeed he announced that he was `rechristening' it, which seems in itself an inappropriate hijacking of a Christian term, especially considering what the millennium is the anniversary of.
The word experience, though, is a clapped-out example of publicity man's hype vocabulary. I thought that was fair- ly well known, for Dame Edna Everage had already made fun of it with her own Experience on television. Another cotton-wool word is acclaim, which is trotted out at the least excuse to puff performers, artists or writers. Once one has noticed how overworked this word now is, it can become rather annoying, so beware. In the hype stakes legendary seems to be giving ground but inspirational is putting on an unwelcome burst of speed. I can't see the attraction; what's wrong with inspiring? One word which has been emptied of meaning by misuse is community. The Chinese community I can understand, the homosexual community perhaps, but how I laughed when I heard Bill Morris, the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, refer, during a discussion of British Airways' wicked deeds, to the cabin-staff community.
Dot Wordsworth
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