This week Boris Johnson denied he had called MPs who passed the act forbidding a no-deal Brexit “collaborators”. His interviewer reminded him that he had spoken of their “terrible collaboration” with the EU. “Correct,” Johnson replied. “There are different connotations to different words.” This is definitely true, eg there are different connotations to the words “beer” and “dolphin”, but are “collaborators” and “collaboration” really different enough?
As someone with a second-class degree in classics, Johnson might once have known that both “collaborator” and “collaboration” come from the same Latin root meaning “to work together”. So he thinks it’s nasty to call someone a “collaborator” – with its echoes of second world war occupation – while his use of “collaboration” is perfectly neutral. Naturally this is false, since “collaboration” has also meant “traitorous cooperation with the enemy” (OED) since 1940.
The prime minister himself has lately been accused by his own sister and the previous chancellor of being backed by rich donors who have made huge financial bets on a no-deal Brexit. At least we now know he wouldn’t mind his relationship with such people being called a “collaboration”.
• Steven Poole’s A Word for Every Day of the Year is published by Quercus.
