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Not so many years ago, I could have written about my annoyance with the
hyperbole that seemed
to have infected our language.
It seemed to me that everyone from media commentators to personal acquaintances
described pretty
much everything in inflated terms. For example, a lunch companion once spilled a
dollop
of mustard and exclaimed, “What a disaster!”
Which made me want to respond (but I didn’t, because columnists are often
braver in print
than in person), “Mustard on a shirt is not a disaster. It is, at most, an
annoying… incident.
And perhaps a dry cleaning bill. A disaster would be, say, a typhoon.”
So you’d think that since the word “incident” has taken over the English
language, I’d be
happy. After all, no more hyperbole, right?
But to me the pervasive use of the word “incident” doesn’t seem like mere
over-compensation
for past hyperboles. It seems… alarming. Disturbing. Or, at least, something more
than merely, well, incidental.
My “that’s it; I’ve reached my limit” moment came last week as I
listened to a radio report
describe the tragic killing of Amish children as an “incident.” Even the
Pennsylvania
Police Commissioner called the tragedy an “incident,” albeit using the
adjectives
“horrendous” and “horrific.”
Now, I’m not trying to pick on the commissioner. He was speaking under stress,
in
the
midst of tragedy. I’m just using this as an example of how the word
“incident” has
taken
over our language.
Or try this experiment. Go to google.com, click on news, and search on the word “incident.” You’ll find stabbings, shootings, rape, a pro football player stomping the face of another player, a gas leak at a refinery, even 38 men dying during a rebel attack on a relief convoy in Darfur… and more… all described as “incidents.”
No, no, no. The spilling of condiments on one’s shirt at lunch is an incident.
Think I’m just being a proper-use-of-language curmudgeon? Here’s why I don’t think so: words have both power and meaning. How an individual uses words tells us a lot about him or her. And how our culture uses words also tells us a lot about us as a people.
So this overuse of the word “incident” to describe everything from mustard droppings to heinous acts of violence makes me wonder… was our previous addiction to language hyperbole just because we’d gotten bored—even complacent—with the world around us… and we wanted to create a little faux excitement?
Have we gone to the other extreme with the word “incident” because the world has become so terrifying that it’s just too depressing to use words like tragedy, crime, travesty, error, mistake?
Are we so overly sensitive about appearing to make any call to judgment that we just default to the word “incident” because it is so neutral and, seemingly, safe?
Maybe these are good explanations for the pervasiveness of “incident.” But I think “incident” as descriptor for every event—no matter its magnitude—is anything but safe because it takes the edge off of shocking events.
And I think if we use words as temporary comfort, to insulate ourselves from having to feel horror about, for example, the atrocities of Darfur, then we’ve engaged in more than an “incident.” We’re using language to numb ourselves to events that ought to stir deep emotion, emotion that can stir discourse, discourse that can stir action.
Such self-numbing use of language is more than an “incident.” It’s a shame.
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