We Need to Expand Our Vocabulary

Tragic... epic... owned... destroyed... unprecedented... heroic...

These are words I tend to see multiple times daily.  I'd like to point out the fact that these words are all considered superlatives when taken in context, and they're invariably used to grab the audience's attention.  Mass media and social media content generators alike love their dazzling headlines, and quite frankly, I'm over it.

To use a fictitious example, the death of a social media influencer's dog is not the same as 100 people dying in a train wreck that also somehow released a massive amount of toxic fluid into the local water supply, yet in both cases, the author of each article is likely to use the word tragic.  The dictionary definition of tragic is causing or characterized by extreme distress or sorrow.  While technically correct in both of these fictitious examples, the scale is radically different.  The passing of a canine companion can certainly be considered tragic to the owner, but it cannot realistically be compared to an event that causes massive ecologic damage and large-scale human death.

There's an old adage in business that says if everything is urgent, then nothing is urgent.  The idea behind this is that treating everything as an emergency dilutes all things critical, because we cannot categorize and prioritize.  The same core principle applies with over-utilizing extreme language in writing.  The end result is that the reader becomes desensitized, and the word loses impact.

I'm probably one of the few people who has noticed and publicly commented on this longstanding trend, and have incorporated this observation into my writing and speaking style.  While I know that I cannot single-handedly reverse this trend, I can do my part to correct things by avoiding sensationalistic language when possible.  As a result, I tend to use understatements in my writing, rather than overstatements.  I generally come across as a bit stoic*, which works for me, because when I do use high-impact words and phrases, they tend to have a bit more impact.  I wish more people did this.  We, as a society, need to expand our vocabulary.

*NOTE:  While I frequently speak using understated language, I will concede that I do overuse profanity when interacting face-to-face.