And one of the things that may have helped us through tough times was the use of euphemisms. World War II was “the emergency” for us. The conflict in the North of Ireland that cost over 3400 lives was “the troubles”.
At the moment we are going through an awful time. Lots of people have lost their jobs. We have surrendered our sovereignty to foreign banks. People are struggling. Some are losing hope.
I find myself wondering if a suitable name would help to rob this thing of some of its power.
We had our “Celtic Tiger” (which in hindsight we should have called the “unsustainable Celtic bubble powered by greed and stupidity” or “Celtic con perpetrated by the few on the many”).
So what could we call the current difficulty?
Politicians are already offering some euphemistic words. The “recession” has been called a “downturn”. They refer to our “current difficulties”. They talk about the IMF “coming to our aid”.
If the bubble was a “tiger” then what animal provides a good metaphor for the current situation?
One possibility that springs to mind is the hyena. Wherever there is a tiger making a kill, there is a pack of hyenas waiting to feed on the left-overs. The problem with the analogy is that (a) hyenas operate in packs and (b) hyenas can make a kill too if the circumstances are right.
Another possibility is the pig. We have already been lumped in with Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece to be the PIGS. Pigs have a reputation (unjustified their fans would say) for eating anything and liking dirty environments.
Primarily because of the negative connotations, I don’t think either of these animals fits our requirements for a euphemism.
The animal I have chosen is the bear. The bear analogy works on two levels:
- Bears hibernate. I have decided to view the current situation as being analogous to hibernation. We will come out of it, but for now we need to conserve our energy and wait for the Spring.
- The term bear is used in relation to the stock market to describe poor economics circumstances, falling stock prices, and general pessimism.
So we’re experiencing the “Celtic Bear” at the moment. But keep the faith: it won’t last forever!