Are You Worried About Inflation? Absolutely.
We’re all familiar with inflation; prices spiral and wages don’t go as far. But devaluation can also happen with language; and boy, is it happening now.
As an experiment, tune into a news broadcast and listen to an interview. Count the number of times, the respondent reaches for a superlative. The word that grates my ears most frequently is: absolutely. It seems that the PR maxim that audiences respond best to clear and positive messaging has produced an epidemic of absolutelys.
The problem with absolutely is that it is an adverb that moves the conversation away from reality. A simple definition of absolutely is that it indicates something with no qualification, restriction, or limitation; totally or completely so. As a response to a question, it is basically a substitute for an emphatic and unreserved YES!
We live in a world that is more relative than absolute. especially when applied to the world of opinion. Thus, a normal and logical exchange of ideas can register a range of responses including both agreement with some qualification and outright dissent.
All communication is rhetorical to some degree. Speaking as a process is complex and words can function not only in terms of what they mean themselves but in terms of how they signpost an attitude to the audience and to the topic. Like great (another word that is overused), absolutely is more important as a symbol of the speaker’s attitude. For politicians, experts and pundits being interviewed, it has become a term that attempts to reposition the questioners so that it appears that they and the respondent are largely in agreement. This is a form of discourse management.
Earlier examples would include: of course or naturally or obviously, and these words have gradually acquired a range of connotations as they became associated with particular inflections and tones. Some of you may have experienced the full condescension of an obviously delivered by some superior, keen to put you in your place.
What is striking about the current wave is how absolutely, an adverb, no longer needs an adjective or verb that it qualifies. Things are not absolutely agreed or accepted. The adverb stands alone. When a verb is added, the rhetorical manoeuvre is revealed, and in most cases exposed since the rest of the response suggests that the true level of agreement is minimal.
Equally striking is how the word absolutely in the English context has moved over the decades from being an inflationary adverb that was ripe for satire to become a word that can be said without shame as a synonym for yes. Back in the early 1990s, the term Absolutely Fabulous was tied to a popular BBC sit-com. It centred on two conspicuously self-indulgent, female executives, Eddy and Patsy, working in PR and fashion. Their efforts to keep up with the latest trends and to continue to live the party life of their youth were parodied; rarely were their lives as fabulous as the title implied. Instead, the term absolutely fabulous symbolised a sector where labels did not match reality, and the series’ satirical edge was sharpened by the presence of Eddy’s bespectacled and sensible daughter Saffy, who routinely had to parent her mother.
But absolutely is not alone. Once you realise how certain words dominate public exchanges, they leap out at you again and again. Let me know yours and we can grumble together.
