Redefinitions

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In the same way that Douglas Adams and John Lloyd ingeniously recycled underused place-names and introduced them into the language, showing prescient instinct for ecological conservation, so nowadays do our celebrities take existing ideas that have fallen out of favour and re-fashion the words describing them to suit the modern vernacular, breathing new life into dead old words. We are all, of course, familiar with the reworking of “humble” in the hands of LinkedIn opinionistas — no one is humble in the old sense anymore, so we might as well re-craft a perfectly sound phonic to mean something else — and the JC will gather other examples in our butterfly-net as we doom-ramble around the world wide web. Do write in (by email, Twitter (@ContrarianJolly) or owl) if you find any.

So, for the record:

Hermit /ˈhɜːmɪt/ (n.)

One so withdrawn and emotionally battered by the cruel vicissitudes of celebrity as to be compelled to submit to a photoshoot and air one’s personal problems in the colour supplement to a national daily newspaper.

“I don’t trust people now. I’m a hermit”. Paul Hollywood, The Times Magazine, Saturday 28 May 2022.

A basic right to privacy /ə ˈbeɪsɪk raɪt tuː ˈprɪvəsi/ (n)

The compulsion to air personal affronts and grievances before the world, by explaining them at length, on live TV, to the most widely syndicated talk show host on the planet.

Megan Markle tells Oprah she just wants her basic right to privacy Insider.com 9 March 2021.