- Wordplay part four - 3rd December 2024
- Terms of endearment (Wordplay part three) - 2nd December 2024
- More ‘Water, water everywhere…’ (Copyright ST Coleridge) part two - 23rd November 2024
During 23 years with the BBC, and in a 41 year journalistic career, words were always chosen carefully by our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, with special terms often used to entice the audience, and now this is underlined by new phrases emerging today.
There would always be a few terms to use.
When I started as a reporter a child abuser would (rightly) be a ‘monster’, snow would cause ‘chaos’ even if there was only a little bit, and invariably there would be ‘more on the way’.
All of this has been emphasised for me by what is happening in the media today.
Only yesterday we heard about the Oxford ‘word (or words) of the year’ – BRAIN ROT or BRAINROT.
It is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media, and its use increased from 2023 to 2024 by 230 per cent!
There also used to be an “Axis of Evil”, and now it appears there is a new one.
Today we have an “Axis of Upheaval” or “Quartet of Chaos”.
Let me explain.
The phrase “Axis of Evil” was first used by President George W Bush, and originally referred to Iran, Ba’athist Iraq, and North Korea.
It cropped up in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the September 11 attacks and almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He also wheeled out the term to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction.
In response, Iran formed a political alliance that it called the “Axis of Resistance” comprising Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
Of course this was employed in the wake of the killing of Hamas leader Yahyar Sinwar.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared: “(Yahya Sinwar’s) loss is undoubtedly painful for the Axis of Resistance, but this front did not cease advancing with the martyrdom of prominent figures.
“Hamas is alive and will remain alive”, he added.
Now there are new monikers in the West.
China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, have become known as the “Axis of Upheaval” or the “Quartet of Chaos”.
The four share a contempt for the American-led global order and a readiness to disrupt it.
The term “Axis of Upheaval” was coined in an article in April written by foreign policy analysts Richard Fontaine and Andrea Kendall-Taylor for the Foreign Affairs (FA) magazine.
Meanwhile the Chief of the General Staff in the UK, Roland Walker, stated at a security conference at the end of July in London that there was a “quartet of countries” that posed a danger to the West.
He was the first at such a level to speak about an “existential threat”, and the phrase has been added to since.
These new terms have ‘chaos’ either in them or implicit in what is said, although their use hasn’t increased by 230 per cent!
Snow isn’t involved either…
Some of the major stories Phil has covered over the years (many of which involved using popular phrases), as he was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Tomorrow – wordplay part four, where he looks at how changes in language today among younger people is driven by the internet.
