George Monbiot (‘Cleansing the stock’ and the doublepeak we must defeat, 22 October) could be said to be restating George Steiner’s arguments for what he called the “retreat from the word”, whereby language is deformed and then reformed entirely empty of human or humane content, terrifyingly in Nazi Germany, and no less disturbingly in “the benefit units” and “collateral damage” of our linguistically perverted times. Some of the worst offenders in this debasement of language are those responsible for what passes today as educational policy, just as guilty as the militarists in hanging on to miserable and demeaning metaphors.
“To know what we are talking about: this, in more than one sense, is the task of those who want a better world,” sighs Monbiot at the end of his piece. Some sigh … little hope.
Bruce Ross-Smith
Headington, Oxfordshire
• George Monbiot rightly deplores the deliberate use of euphemisms to disguise unpalatable truths. Their insidiousness is such that he admits that even in his own article there may be “dehumanising metaphors” that he has failed to spot. However, he focuses on mainly military usages. More sinister are those everyday euphemisms that are so familiar that we fail to recognise their veiling of the truth. Warming is something we do to teapots and cold beds, something welcome, so global overheating is called “warming”. The damage caused to the climate is called “change”. Horrific illustrations are called “graphic”. And so on. Could the Guardian produce an anti-euphemism supplement to add to the style guide?
Gerry Abbott
Manchester
• Language expresses biases in many ways. Why did you not describe the Banksy “mural” (Report, 22 October) as vandalism? If it’s because it’s “art”, then perhaps the “blue paint splashed across it” could also be thought of as art, a gestural response to the crude and trivialised parody of a superb Vermeer.
Dr Donald Smith
Haddington, East Lothian
