#924 Income Negligible

I often complain about the modern uses of language. Some of the new words and phrases seem to do more harm than good. Some of the old reference points are slipping away—to the detriment of good comedy.
Case in point, the type of shoe known as a buck or a pair of bucks. Pat Boone wore them. You may remember Pat. He was a crooner from the fifties. Often lovingly called the white Elvis. Squeeky clean. In the era of bobby sox he was known for his white buck shoes. Too bad his popular footwear wasn’t around for the President Bush Iraqi journalist shoe-throwing incident.
The Prez could have joked, “I guess the bucks stop here.”
Words can raise unintended interpretations. Recently I heard about a football playoff called the Humanitarian Bowl. My first thought was, it was given as a consolation bowl for losers.
So another thing we’ve been doing with language is creating phrases meant to be more sensitive. In many cases, I agree. But language always evolves and what was once good becomes bad because bad people uses it meanly.
The term “retarded” was originally meant as a nice alternative to stupid or moron. It has since evolved through “mentally disabled” to “mentally challenged” to “special needs” to the broader “persons with disabilities.”
“Crippled” went to “handicapped” to “disabled” and then the more value neutral “differently-abled.”
Recently I heard an ad for a place that was accepting poor people. But they didn’t say poor. They didn’t even say low income. They put a positive spin on it and called it income eligible. Non-income eligible is more like it.
Or perhaps income negligible.
I’m all for putting a positive spin on things. And I’m all for not diminishing a person’s self esteem by insisting on words that brand them a charity case.
Pride is an important motivator.
Which makes me worry that when we say things like “income eligible” we are not empowering people. Maybe we’re getting them to resign themselves and accept their position more.
There is fine line between contentment and complacency.
America, ya gotta love it.