Have you ever been redacted?
September 27th 2009 03:24
One morning I received a curious email from my husband while we were both at work. He asked me what word he could use instead of ‘redact’ when speaking of terminating (i.e., firing, sacking, pink slipping) an employee. Hmm. I was surprised, and replied that ‘redact’ is more or less synonymous with ‘edit’ in the sense of 'to edit a piece of writing'. (Dictionary meaning: to prepare documents for publication.)
Husband's next message was even more surprising: “The termination papers here always use the word ‘redact’ and ‘redaction’, but I want to use another word in my airsoft [military roleplaying] game.” (Heh, yes he makes good use of company time.)
It seemed that someone out there in corporate land thought ‘redact’ an acceptable euphemism for ‘terminate’, which owing to a linguistic lapse led my husband to perceive ‘redact’ as an another term for ‘terminate’ in the sense of 'kill'.
After sorting things out with my husband, I did a quick Google search for “redact euphemism”. It turns out that ‘redact’ has been a popular buzzword of late, used by governmental figures and the like to mean ‘cover up’ or ‘censor’.
Despite the appalling instance of governmental 'redactions', I am actually more offended by the corporate use of ‘redact’. I can understand, in a slippery slope kind of way, how removing undesirable parts of a document can be part of the redaction process. But redaction, in the real sense, is somewhat neat and tidy; it's an act that's all about polishing something to make it presentable. A redacted paper is one thing, but it is quite another thing to redact a person. Or is it? You screwed up, and now the corporation wants to edit you out of the picture. Redacted. Done.
Aside: If you’re interested in issues of language and corporate jargon, I recommend Death Sentences by Don Watson.
Husband's next message was even more surprising: “The termination papers here always use the word ‘redact’ and ‘redaction’, but I want to use another word in my airsoft [military roleplaying] game.” (Heh, yes he makes good use of company time.)
It seemed that someone out there in corporate land thought ‘redact’ an acceptable euphemism for ‘terminate’, which owing to a linguistic lapse led my husband to perceive ‘redact’ as an another term for ‘terminate’ in the sense of 'kill'.
After sorting things out with my husband, I did a quick Google search for “redact euphemism”. It turns out that ‘redact’ has been a popular buzzword of late, used by governmental figures and the like to mean ‘cover up’ or ‘censor’.
Despite the appalling instance of governmental 'redactions', I am actually more offended by the corporate use of ‘redact’. I can understand, in a slippery slope kind of way, how removing undesirable parts of a document can be part of the redaction process. But redaction, in the real sense, is somewhat neat and tidy; it's an act that's all about polishing something to make it presentable. A redacted paper is one thing, but it is quite another thing to redact a person. Or is it? You screwed up, and now the corporation wants to edit you out of the picture. Redacted. Done.
Aside: If you’re interested in issues of language and corporate jargon, I recommend Death Sentences by Don Watson.
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