Words of Wisdom: Relate or Not, It’s Irrelevant

Every decade has its vogue words or phrases. No one knows why they surface. Usually they are not new. Somehow they rise from obscurity and become cliches. Often they are given a boost by some celebrity. Usually they are used in the wrong sense.

Barney Weinman nominates a few for the ‘60s to the ‘90s. In the ‘60s, he says, the word was parameter . “All the parameters of one’s spiritual self-realization are only limited by the transcendental love of oneself.”

Parameter is a word properly used in mathematics, with a specific mathematical meaning. However, everyone began using it for perimeter , which simply means boundary, and we all began living within our parameters. It was probably favored because it sounded technical.

In my memory irrelevant was the word of the ‘60s. I sometimes argued with my sons’ college friends. We sat on the carpet and drank beer and talked about the irrelevance of life. I remember that every one of my points was dismissed as irrelevant, without argument. In fact, anyone over 30 was dismissed as irrelevant.

In the ‘70s, according to Weinman, relate was the word. “As in I can’t relate to a committed one-on-one relationship by myself.” Relate is still around. People no longer like something, or understand something, or feel comfortable with something or somebody; they relate to it or her or him.

It was in the ‘70s, I believe, that two illiterate phrases came into popular use. One was “at this point in time,” which completely replaced “now.” It was John W. Dean, President Nixon’s former counsel, who fixed that unlovely phrase in the language during the Watergate hearings. The other phrase was “I could care less,” which was supposed to mean “I couldn’t care less.” Actually, “I could care less” means “I care.” Both “I could care less” and “at this point in time” are still around.

Certain words also become vogue words in critical writing. It was probably in the ‘60s that the word luminous came into favor. Performances in movies (especially by actresses such as Meryl Streep) were invariably hailed as “luminous,” which meant, I suppose, that the actress seemed to be lighted from within. Later, I think it was in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, the word skew appeared out of limbo in the depths of the language to decorate almost every review. The plot was skewed by some intrusive action. Today, hardly anything remains unskewed.

Weinman says that the word of the ‘90s, so far, is icon . “At one time a rather obscure yet specific word pertaining to religious images. Now we have icons in rock, sports and real-estate sales. I guarantee you’ll find the word icon at least five times in today’s Times. And not in stories about Slavic smugglers on weary mules, braving precipitous mountain trails.”

I haven’t yet noticed the proliferation of icon , but it is true that when baseball players sign $26-million contracts they must be icons. Donald Trump is probably regarded as an icon in the world of high finance, though, of course, icons can become tarnished.

A phrase of the ‘80s that has become somewhat discredited is “Read my lips.” I suspect that Mr. Bush wishes he had never said it. But “Read my lips” is one common phrase whose popularization can be traced to its perpetrator. Most of them are deposited in the language by unknown and unsung innovators. Of course, “Read my lips” was probably in rather common use before it was immortalized by the President. Now it will never have any other connotation.

Somewhere back there, perhaps in the ‘70s, the word total in various forms came into vogue. One’s commitment was total. One’s misery was total. One was involved totally. One enjoyed or hated totally. This was especially a favorite of teen-agers, those ingenious inventors of new language.

It was that group, also, that introduced the ubiquitous “y’know,” which was used to introduce or punctuate every thought, or anything that passed for thought.

There is no point in listing a glossary of teen-age talk; it is really another subject. It constantly invigorates the language, and some of it sticks, though I suspect that its purpose in the first place is to be incomprehensible to adults.

We can’t blame teen-agers for “state of the art,” a phrase that flowered with the proliferation of electronic gadgets, and which, in my own experience, was applied to something so sophisticated that I couldn’t make it work. Anything from a luxury car to a waffle iron could be “state of the art.”

Another vogue word omitted by Weinman is commitment , a mainstay of that vocabulary known as psychobabble. Two lovers who share living quarters for more than two weeks are said to have made a commitment. Sometimes known as a relevant commitment.

But, y’know, I already have a commitment, and the parameters of one’s life permit one to focus on only one commitment at a time.

I just hope nothing comes along to skew it, because I could care less.