Pity poor ‘unpack’

It’s carrying a lot of baggage as the vogue word of the moment.

A Washington Post book reviewer extolled an author’s attempt to “unpack the complex interlocutions of a wide world writ small.”

American Prospect wrote about New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s effort to “unpack the new, flattened world economy.”

When writers use “unpack” this way, they mean “analyze,” “examine” or “explain,” permissible uses, says Webster’s Third International. The usage lurked there, as definition 2(b), safely cloaked in obscurity until recently, when it leapt up like Tom Cruise on “Oprah.”

Now “unpacking” is everywhere, even in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, where an academic argued “that it is in fact possible to unpack a normative paradigm (or essence) underlying the practice of apologizing.”

Our unofficial survey of U.S. newspapers shows nearly 600 uses in the last two months.

Although many “unpacks” were of the common suitcase variety, the word is increasingly hot with writers who used to get windy with “explore” and “dissect.” We vote for vivisection.

-- Brendan Buhler