By Denville Larry O J Vaughan
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Listening to BBC Caribbean report this week Tuesday, I was pleased to hear that the Oxford American Dictionary had announced its Word of the Year and the number of contenders that had vied for the status. Usually the Word of the Year is chosen from a shortlist that has found widespread and unchallenged acceptance in the vernaculars of the world.
The new words with universal acceptance in 2009, according to the Oxford American Dictionary, include the words Sexting – sending sexually explicit images or words in a text, Intexticated – to be distracted by texting while driving, and Netbook – a type of miniature laptop. The Word of the Year (2009) is Unfriend – the act of deleting someone from one’s friend list as in Facebook and other social sites.
I listened with amazement as I discovered one more time that the English Language is ever dynamic to accommodate the cultural shifts of a society, especially today, as the peoples of the world are affected by technological advancements and their seemingly universal acceptance. So one can now say, “Kimberly instantly pulled out her netbook and unfriended James, when she learned that he was intexticated by the sexting of her cousin.”
My mind then started to look at our nation to see what words have we been coining and accepting lately. My mind wanted to embrace the novel words or expression that we have been added to the Kittitian lexicon, or what possible new meanings have we given to words that already exist, or perhaps have we added any new and colourful expressions to the language of our people.
Already we are no stranger to Kittitian made words like Hippin – cloth diapers, Draffick – to preview a film at the movie theatre, Coop – to lay in ambush, to trail, and Hammond – originally a euphemism for illicit bush rum that many locals began to distill and consume with the windfall made as a result of the recommendations of the Lord Hammond Report of 1952. These terms and others have helped to indentify us a strong and resourceful people.
In 2009, we have three contenders for National Word or Expression of the Year. The second runner-up in my mind is an expression coined on the bench. It is a term that will forever be used to condemn persons who we believe to have told a lie. When we want to be condemnatory and yet respectful, many will be heard from 2009 saying that one is “a stranger to the truth”.
First consolation prize goes to word that means the art of frustrating the agenda of someone who has the right and responsibility to act. It also could be defined as the method of thwarting the actions of another. Now in 2009, when the husband does not feel that the wife should rearrange the bedroom because he will not be comfortable with the new arrangement as he may stub his toe when coming in late at night, he will now put an “injunction” on her. And if she continues to perform her duties she can say she was not “injunct”.
There is a word that has knocked me for six in 2009. I have been left baffled until its definition was outlined to me. The word means to speak passionately and truthfully of a situation but made to recant on account of having offended an unnamed culprit. The word also can be made to mean that one has spoken too much without deeper reflection and contemplation on how powerful unseen hands can be.
So from now on if I say yesterday that the Chamber maliciously gave an unsigned and unauthorized release to PAM and expose wrong doing in a group that plays partisan politics with the interest of the country but my peers castigate me for not hiding their faults, as they did, in a need for unity in duplicity, then I say from today that originally I ‘overspoke’.
The English lexicon has recognized the words overrun, overkill, overpower, overtake, overlook, overconfidence, oversupply and oversubtle among the more than 200 words with the prefix over. Overspeak, the simple present of this newly formed is now the new best coined word in the Kittitian vernacular.
Overspoke allows for flexibility. It allows one to recant one’s personal conviction without saying that the new position has been forced upon one. While others will say, “I held my tongue so that my peers and I could cook up an explanation”, by using the word overspoke I can euphemistically say, “I really did chat too much to the chagrin of the offender who is using a civil organisation to put forward an agenda in the interest of his/her political party of choice.”
The beauty of overspoke is its simplicity and mystery. When I said I overspoke, you would believe I meant that I retract my expression that there was malice in the leak of the press release to PAM, thus offending the other two members of the tripartite group. What you would not quickly grasp is that the malice I spoke to was a hatred of the idea of a Labour Party in government and that the offender would prefer to send out one copy of a release, that is now “believed” to have been authorized for dispersal, yet no media house received a copy but the PAM Chairman, personally. As a result of overspeaking, the mystery of this faux pas, at best, and sinister ploy were lost to the mind of the average listener.
Having overspoke however does not account for the fact that no released copy of the communiqué bore the signature of any of the officers of the organisations nor did it have the logo of any of the represented bodies affixed, but when the notice for a press conference was sent out all three logos were on the notice. Yet it was authorized for release.
Having overspoke does not explain how a body, managed by a perfectionist and stickle for protocol and the on-time receipt and dissemination of information, can have “a glitch in communication” that was not widespread that all media houses had received this release that Friday/Saturday as the PAM Chairman had received it.
Having overspoke does not reveal to the public what were the items that were considered to be struck out of the discarded press release that PAM was allowed to read on the radio and would never have been allowed for public consumption had there not been that “glitch in communication”, neither does it reveal what the revised text and “spirit of the letter” should be, after having met with the Prime Minister.
What having overspoke has done is to show that there are lesser partners in this tripartite arrangement who must give way to the crafty machinations of the agents and agencies of unseen yet known forces whose desire it is to influence the results of the elections ahead. These bastions of wealth possess an ambition to hold the reins of power once more in this country and will sacrifice the credibility of any person who stands in their way, even if I am asked to fall on my sword - not Excalibur, oh no, on my sword called Overspoke.
Overspoke will not be synonymous with shouting, nor will it be the needless use of aggression or militancy by other men of the cloth to scare the media into submission and silence because as a public figure believes that he is above reproach.
Today, I would advise anyone, who like me, has been made to believe that he/she overspoke in recent times to employ the other word of 2009 and unfriend any person who sought to negatively influence your public career and sully your personal existence. If in your heart you know that what you said initially was the truth and you allowed others to use fancy coinage and misinformation to bring about a united front for malice and strife to have full sway, Holy Writ admonishes, “He that puts his hand to the plough and takes it back is not fit for the Kingdom.”
If staying in their company will stifle your conscience, step away, for a Code of Conduct does not have to emanate from your organisations in a joint effort. Where codes like this exist in the world, they were issued and administered by the Electoral Commission of the land. We have an electoral commission in St. Kitts-Nevis which has its membership made up of representatives of the political parties which can provide balanced administration of the code, if allowed to. There, political agents are free to express the desires and agendas of their movements and with consensus arrive at a document worthy of advancing the national good. There is no need for carnivorous wolves to be dressed as unbiased sheep seeking to advance the agenda of their party over another.
It is time that members of civil society be just that, civil. Its actions should always be above board, and irreproachable. The role of civil society is to represent and advocate the cause of its membership to the powers that be and not police the system so as to affect the social outcome. So if a civil organisation or a group of three wants a Code of Conduct made, or they wish for other matters of the electoral system like changes to the boundaries, let them advocate these desires, whether singly or as a group, to the Electoral Commission.
Perhaps by now I may have overwritten (that is a word), but surely I would not have overstressed (yes, that too is a bona fide word) that there was no need for anyone to say he overspoke.
The writer is a former teacher and current social and political activist.
