In 2026 our day to day vocabulary has changed. For example, the name of my occupation at this moment is not writer, or author, or even editor; it’s “content creator.”
Words we use make a difference. They are our primary tools of communication. They can be easily misunderstood or misinterpreted. How many times, after a heated exchange with someone else, have you said or heard: ” That’s not what I meant!” The clearest example of this kind of misunderstanding was first created in 2017, by President Trump’s Whitehouse Advisor, Kellyanne Conway, when she referred to “alternative facts” as she reported on some fake news. Now alternative facts are all we know from the US government.
Today’s technology provides some good examples of this misinterpretation as we learn a whole new vocabulary. We used to have a couple of words like “swindle” or “fraud” to describe somebody taking advantage of us. “Scam” wasn’t even included in my dictionary of 1998. Now we have an even newer word ” spam” which means something just slightly different but a lot more invasive: an inappropriate or illegal message sent to millions of readers on the Internet.
Then there’s the technological advancement which, only a couple of years ago, was called Artificial Intelligence. So cultivated! So important! Who uses all those sophisticated syllables these days? Today people just think of it as plain old AI, part of life, even as it continues to grow far more destructive to our economy than anything in the past.
As social media takes over our lives, we now know the meaning of “influencers” – people with a lot of charisma, charm, whatever name you want to make up, who can coax us into their beliefs about lifestyle, religion, politics. We begin to “follow” them, not on an innocent path through the woods, but on a virtual journey through a landmine of spam. If they are hosting an event, we can even get an invitation to attend, not by snail mail or even taxi, but “virtually.” We can meet up with other “followers” all over the world, from the privacy of our homes. The socializing arrangements of meeting for coffee in a restaurant, or hoisting a beer in a pub together seem antiquated.
Some of the most formidable influencers perform in the area of “wellness.” It seems that everyone wants to live past 90 these days, and they want to do it well. Most influencers in this field focus on diet; peddling supplements, and pills. Others sell expensive machines like Peleton bikes, Smart Fit mirrors, Dr Ho’s circulation machines. Then there are medications for weight loss, names that were only whispered by druggists in the past. Now Ozempic is a part of everyone’s vocabulary. Will the devoted followers live past 90? Nobody knows for sure.
Words can lead us in many different political directions. They themselves act as influencers. They make the impossible seem normal. Trump’s constant use of the word “war” makes violence seem more acceptable, more commonplace. You’d think that 3 attempts on his life would have a positive effect on him. But no, they just inflame his rhetoric even more. He faced journalist Norah O’Donnell with anger and insults in front of millions of viewers, after she questioned him about it.
In the political world of today, if things aren’t going well between political adversaries, we don’t even have a war. We use a new word to replace those events in the past, which now appear as skirmishes between small foreign countries, like North Korea or Iraq. These days influencers are calling the current world situation an “existential threat.” Let’s all hope that this multi-syllable word doesn’t become part of our everyday vocabulary.
Sue
Seventy In the City 