Football pundit Tony Cascarino is in trouble. He said the h word - yes, holocaust. To quote him exactly :
"Poor Traore at right-back is having a holocaust because he's finding himself against Nani, who's literally running him from everywhere and Arshavin's just not tracking his runners"
The resulting storm is predictable. Newspaper headlines scream their outrage. Fans call for him to be sacked on the spot. Sky Sports instantly apologises.
Even the - quite often fairly sensible - Daily Mail gets in on the act with "'He's having a holocaust': Shock as Sky Sports pundit compares Arsenal's defending to Nazi genocide"
What is it with our society today that we seemingly seek to make elements of language taboo, to allow pre-existing words to be monopolised to express only a single thing. Gay would be another example.
Holocaust is a word. It may have been adopted to refer to those events, but it existed long before those events took place and did not originally refer to them.
It may have acquired additional meaning because of its usage relating to those events, but it did not originate from those events, it was simply applied to them.
Even the dictionary tells us that, among other things, holocaust refers to a large scale devastation or destruction - which would, surely, be an apt description of the football match Tony Cascarino was commentating on.
There would have been no objections had he said Arsenal player/s had been completely destroyed and devastated by Manchester United - which, in fact, is what he did say, using a word which expresses those meanings.
He didn't refer to anything else, didn't imply it, he just used a word that is a legitimate part of our language. Had he added to it with other references then the furore might have legitimacy, but he didn't, he simply used a single word which is in the dictionary, and was in the dictionary and in common usage, long before the events of World War 2.
Yet he is pilloried, the headlines scream of outrage, fury, outcry - all for using a word, admittedly awkwardly and clumsily phrased, in roughly one of the contexts for which that word was created and became a part of our language to express.
The baying lynch mob of those keen to take offence at every opportunity is upon him, common sense or the actual meaning - both literal and intended - of his words doesn't matter to them one iota, they want blood.
We see the same often, a remark made in all innocence suddenly twisted to become a hateful outrage and fodder for the PC moral guardians of thought and speech to work themselves into hysteria over. Actual meaning and intent are no barrier to their frenzied attentions.
We walk a dangerous road when words can become enchained like this, can suddenly become utterly off limits, and can have their meaning completely reduced from the original intent to become a monotone expression only allowable to refer to one thing.
By enslaving words like this we enslave thought and expression, it is as simple as that.
Football pundit Tony Cascarino is in trouble. He said the h word - yes, holocaust. To quote him exactly :
