By the time this post appears, those of us who can be bothered will have read Sue Gray's report into whether people working in British Government Offices held illegal parties during any of England's Coronavirus lockdowns.
There's a chance the report may result in the resignation, or defenestration, of the Prime Minister, so it is important.
Several national news programmes in the days leading up to the release of the Sue Gray report* have featured possible infractions of the rules as their lead story - it seems that the year before last someone made Boris a cake - thus relegating the massing of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border to a matter of relatively small importance.
What's going on? How can the possibility of war in Europe be less important than an eighteen-month-old cake?
I do not want to live in a country ruled by journalists, but this seems to be an attempt to create one. Annoyingly, I cannot find a word to describe it.
Journalarchy?
It's a fairly horrible word, but the Ancient Greeks did not have newspapers, so for now it might have to do.
Word To Use Today: journalarchy - or a better word meaning this if you know or can think of one. Amararchy would be more consistently Greek. The word journalist comes from French. Journal is Old French for daily and comes from the Latin diurnālis. Diēs means day. Amar is the Greek for day.
*As it happens, almost all of Sue Gray's findings have not been released, at the request of the Metropolitan Police, who are conducting their own enquiry.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are very welcome, but please make them suitable for The Word Den's family audience.