To listen to Michael D. "Rockin' In The Dail" Higgins, you'd think you were in France circa 1797.
He's a poet, you see, and his ear is keenly sensitive to words. And not only the sound and rhythm, but the meaning. Words like client fall harshly, and he'd like us all to stop using such terms.
It's just that we in business refer to those who come to us for services as clients. Mr. Higgins doesn't like that when it's those in public service referring to their...er, clients? Service users?
In future, it's Citizen!
En garde, St. Vincent de Paul Society.
You aren't serving the public at large. You are serving citizens of the Irish Republic, and you're to call them citizens when you file your lengthy requests for funding. We won't allow the poor to be thought of as ordinary customers of some cold and calculating business. No, we are to use our hearts instead of our heads and call them Citizen.
Citizen Higgins hears "client" and he thinks "bureaucracy". That's what rattles the tympani of a man who knows only academia and never set foot in an ordinary business office.
In spite of Citizen Michael D.'s belief that the poor will be better treated if they are awash in the language of citizenship, those without are still approaching them what's got and asking for a slice of the pie. Them what's got had to work for their piece, and there's always a touch of resentment, whether the asker is a citizen or a client or a pyjama-wearing lazy sot. Changing words doesn't change hearts. It changes the meaning of the word.
Marie Antoinette became a citoyenne, but everyone still recognized her as the Queen of France. If they hadn't, why did they chop off her head?
A citizen with plenty of free time to spend obsessing over minutiae, Ireland's President is now picking nits in language, as if labeling someone a citizen will bring that person a bounty of hand outs from the government.
Oh, sorry. Bring them social justice.
Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons! Marchons! to the social protection office and demand your fair share of the diminishing pie as a citizen of Ireland.
But not for too long.
In time, "citizen" will come to mean "pyjama-wearing lazy sot" and then Michael D. will have to find a new word.
How about...client?
No comments:
Post a Comment