DOUBLESPEAKING

Hello once again folks and welcome to my blog. Today I want to write about something which will lead to something that will make that “something” meaningful. The “something” want to talk about is, double-speaking. This is a term I just leant in the book I am reading right now which is POINT MAN by Steve Farrar.

According to how I understood it, double speaking is when we minimize the gravity of a negative word to make it more palatable to the ear. To make my point clear, here are a few examples. We call Adultery which is a “harsh” word and replace it with “Affair”, Fat as “Big Boned”, and Fornicating as “Testing the Waters”.

The fine art of double speaking has its advantages. It keeps the listener at ease when faced with intense situations beyond their control. It also allows the message to sink in gradually at the pace of the listener. Here is my problem with double speaking. Sometimes, I see it as “sugar-coating” negative trends in our society. We call the things that are wrong and try to dilute the truth. If we call things as they are, there will be little to no problems because we would know how to solve these problems.

My first example is in the place of business. There are different terms business men use to reduce the damage they have caused to their clients. As I was reading the book POINT MAN by Steve Farrar, I came across a perfect example of double speaking which took place on the October 1997 (Black Monday) when the stock market crashed. A stock broker said it was a “forth-quarter equity retreat”. To me, it is just a way of saying, “things are not as bad as they seem”.

Let us take an example of relationships. If a man/woman is bad in nature, you should know the consequences of giving your most valuable possession to that person. The possession I am talking about is not your money or your body (which is part of it) but I meant your heart. I have read stories about women and men who have given their hearts to people who they know have questionable attributes. I know that you might say “don’t judge me for who I am on the outside but what I am on the inside” but let’s face the facts; if your inside is clean, then it should reflect on the outside as well and vice versa. I might sound like a judgemental prick but let me get this straight. There is redemption for these bad people but when they are unrepentant and you still give them a chance to chip your heart bit by bit, you are setting yourself up for failure. Don’t give excuses like “he/she is not all that bad” or “it is just a phase”; if a man or woman cannot control her bad habits in their relationship, what makes you think they will change when they get married?

Another typical example is the unsavoury sexual references our society has formulated. We hear of men and women being on the “down low”. This particular expression means that the man or woman is not really bisexual but the man or woman just has a “thing” for their own sex. This happens because the men and women have dialled down the gravity of the offense they are committing by bringing up phrases like “down-low”, “this is who I am”, instead of infidelity, homosexuality and adultery. Double speaking has given birth to articles and some counsellors advising their clients and readers to “try something new” to spice up the relationship. The advice that could be given to them may be to see other people and experiment with life to “see what is out there”. That is nonsense. The day you got married, you promised to be together in sickness and in health; for richer or poorer. You should know that marriage is not a venture for boys (it is boys who learn what is out there and the consequences of their actions); it is a man’s game.

There are unintended consequences of using double-speaking. They tend to replace the vocabulary of the original offense. These days’ people don’t like using the word Homosexual but prefer to use the word Gay which is supposed to mean merry hearted or free spirited. But because of its repeated usage, it has been added into the dictionary as being attracted to the same sex. I am sure you can think of other words that are used in this day and age that dilute the meaning of the original words.

Here is the crux of my article double speaking should not be used negatively. Of course we should call a spade a spade; no more no less. But when you want to advice someone who is wrong on any issue, you have to call him/her out on what they have done. Growing up, my parents always called me out on my misgivings and up till now, they still do. That does not mean they don’t love me, it just means that they want to make sure I don’t end up being a nuisance to the society. By calling adultery what it is, it should bring some kind of guilt into your heart because you know that adultery is tantamount to betrayal. Don’t use words like affair or fling to minimize the offence admit your mistake and take necessary precautions to stop it. If you know what you are doing is wrong and you are still doing it, then I feel so sorry for you.

As I give my keyboard a rest, please take some time and read this scripture from the Bible Matthew 5:27

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So everyone, LIVE LONG AND EXCEL.