Bob Barr

The buzzword police
by Bob Barr as published by UPI

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Georgia's school superintendent, Kathy Cox, has been roundly condemned for her proposal that the word "evolution" be removed from the state's public school textbooks.

Cox proposed that the offending term be replaced by the phrase "biological changes over time," reflecting the bureaucrat's first rule of thumb, "never say in one word what you can say in four."

In explanation of her proposal, Cox stated simply that "evolution" had become a "buzzword," that created "pressure" on teachers in "socially conservative areas where parents objected to its teaching."

Actually, the superintendent might be on to something here.

There are too many "buzzwords" being bandied about in society today. These words are confusing and they create pressure on tender minds of all ages, not just those of school age who fall within Cox's jurisdiction; and not just those in "socially conservative areas."

Think how much simpler public discourse would be if we didn't have to deal with such distasteful terms as "abortion." Talk about a buzzword. We could simply define it away, and by a stroke of a pen, it disappears; to be replaced with "biological changes over time." Oh, that term's already taken. Well, how about "sudden life force changes?" Or the equally benign, "exercise of reproductive rights?"

Washington could also get in on the act. Nasty "deficits," which certainly create pressure on Republicans and Democrats alike in these oh-so-difficult times, would become a thing of the past. It would be so much easier and simpler to deal with "exercises in budgetary expenditures over time."

The current and often pressure-packed debate over "weapons of mass destruction" would be far less vituperative if Cox could prevail on everyone from Kofi Annan to George W. Bush, to remember that these are simply, "tools with which to send large numbers of people to the Promised Land over a period of time."

The problems facing our intelligence community, which seems to have erred greatly not only in failing to correctly ascertain the threats posed by large number of terrorists (henceforth in Cox-speak, "individuals seeking political changes over time"), but also in greatly exaggerating the likelihood that tools with which to send large numbers of people to the Promised Land over a period of time were present in pre-invasion Iraq, would receive a new lease on life.

"Intelligence," always a pressure-packed buzzword, would vanish; replaced by the more comfortable term, "what we want it to mean at this point in time but which may change over time, circumstances and politics." The only problem would become what to rename the Central Intelligence Agency, but I'm sure the same folks who gave us "shock and awe" as a new term of sophisticated military policy can come up with something.

The Bush administration, anticipating the Georgia school superintendent's new language policy, has already begun redefining, along with its neo-conservative supporters, many terms which heretofore had been needlessly confusing.

"Overthrowing a foreign government," has become simply "regime change over time"; while "invasion" has been superceded by the more comforting term, "preemptive action." In education, near and dear to all state school superintendents, Washington has led the way. For example, the old saw horse, "increased federal spending on education," has become "No Child Left Behind."

Protecting the sensibilities of our anti-Second Amendment crowd is important to all of us, and removing the term "assault weapon" from the lexicon and replacing it with, "a military-style firearm capable of fully automatic fire," would help. But wait, that is the definition of an assault weapon, and it certainly hasn't stopped gun control advocates from continuing to use the term to mean any "firearm" that looks mean, including those that are not capable of fully automatic fire. Oh well, the process on which we're embarking to clean up our language won't be without its fits and starts.

Already, the buzzword's future days are numbered, and not a minute too soon, given that this is a presidential election year and its attendant electoral silliness is in full gear.

The ongoing primary season, which has created its own sense of pressure, and has given rise to a number of buzzwords, certainly should fall within the crosshairs of the Buzzword Police. "Front-runner," perhaps the most confusing of primary-related terms, would be more honestly defined as "whoever the mainstream media decides is the most intriguing at the moment." Of course, as Howard Dean, Wes Clark, and other Democrat hopefuls whose enthusiasm becomes boundless with a second, third- or fourth-place finish, the buzzword "winner" has no meaning whatsoever; at least not thus far.

Removing offending, pressure-inducing buzzwords will not immediately end all forms of pressure or unpleasantness in our society, but it sure would be a start. Forcing people to use the new terms would be a huge job in itself, but I'm sure the new Buzzword Police would be up to the task. They'd want to start with that pesky word, "censorship," and define it away with a whisk of the bureaucratic wand. "Changing vocabulary over time" is so much less threatening.