“Unfortunate”

In my daily life, which exists mainly to support my paintball life, I see and hear things every day that draw parallels to things I see and hear as a paintball player and writer/photographer/commentator. Words are wonderful things, they really are! What I lack in formal education as a writer I try to make up for with passion for the written word as well as the spoken word.

This obsession with words and how they’re used has given me a knack for finding patterns of speech that turn into buzzwords that spread throughout American society. In the 60’s and 70’s words and phrases like “Groovy”, “Right On”, and “Keep on Truckin’” infected the patois of the American lexicon. During the ’80’s we were treated to classics like “Radical”, “Where’s the Beef!?” and others best left forgotten.

Now, in the last bit of the first decade of the 2000’s, I’ve seen the usage of the word “Unfortunate” being used similarly to the 70’s classic “Troglodyte”. The literal translation of this particular two-dollar word is “Caveman”. Usage of this word was particularly nasty because not only were you calling someone a caveman, but using it also assumed the individual being insulted with it wouldn’t know what the actual meaning of the word, giving you two insults by the use of one word.

In reading information and commentary across a wide spectrum of sources including CNN, other writers, and corporate professionals, I’m seeing a pattern emerging with the usage of the word “Unfortunate”. The usage can range from the descriptive to casually dismissive. With the current climate we’re in, the usage is trending more and more towards the dismissive side of the scale. I’ve seen this word used in various ways on mainstream media outlets, to personal emails, and I’m even hearing it used in everyday speech.

Rather than using stronger words to describe something or someone, tossing in the word “unfortunate” allows for the same descriptive impact as a more pejorative word while adding the nasty little bonus of dismissing the person or thing being called unfortunate as irrelevant and worthy of contempt. Personally speaking, I’m not sure what could be considered more offensive: being insulted, or having the assumption made that I’m too dense to realize that I’m being insulted because a subtle, politically correct word was used to insult me.

Like everyday life, paintball reflects who we are and where we’re going, albeit on a smaller scale. A small thing like the usage of a word spreads itself across a society and sport at the same speed. Political Correctness in all its’ useless and degenerate glory has been spreading through American Society for some time now, and a return to the ’70’s in attitude and results is what we’re reaping from what we’ve sown.

Unfortunate…