The week of the recess has been dominated by media accounts of alleged “inappropriate behaviour”: a peer with female political hopefuls, a Cardinal with priests, the jury and its questions to the judge, the BBC and the fallout from Savile, the Libor traders, the Australian swimming team, the ward matron and his colleagues, and the football antiracist campaigner who had to resign his trusteeship because of the language he used. No two of the alleged actions were the same. So “inappropriate behaviour” has become a handy phrase to cover a multitude of sins, obfuscating the real issues and permitting us to avoid thinking about what is really going on.
The dictionary definition of “inappropriate” is not suitable or proper. In other words, what is inappropriate may be appropriate in the right time or place. Inappropriate is, for example, eating a bag of popcorn in a business meeting; wearing a swimsuit to a funeral; using a mobile phone at a concert. All actions that might be OK in different circumstances. But almost all of the actions allegedly complained of as “inappropriate” during the recess, as outlined above, would not be appropriate in any circumstances. As far as I can tell or guess from the accounts, they were, to give them their proper names, groping, sexual assault, financial fraud, discriminatory or sexist language, avoidance of responsibility.
It is to be regretted that our vocabulary is so poor that we are not analysing exactly what is going on in each situation and how it should be ameliorated, prevented or punished. “Inappropriate” behaviour is joining the crowd of words that have become detached from their real meaning and are used to avoid saying what we actually mean – “challenging” and “vulnerable” are two more such. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further.
WHat “Lord Blagger” said…
If you are going to complain about word usage, it would be helpful to suggest an alternative. Otherwise, we’ll never learn!
Here the baroness is principly bringing to the public eye the largely ‘hidden’ bad factor
of linguistic and conduct “sabotage” of our pursuits of Truth, Good-living, and Honest-governance;
thus she is in a sense turning “Queen’s Witness” and is to be ‘protected’ against personal-attack as a ‘guilty-party’.
We (The Public, as well as her professional and ‘class’ peers) need to focus upon all the larger-than-Baroness-Deech malfeasances she is ‘whistleblowing’ about;
thus the baroness tacitly implies that she (too) is already ‘compromised’:
“It is to be regretted that
our vocabulary (she includes herself)
is so poor that we are not analysing
(tacitly admitting this baroness’s vocabulary is ‘so poor’ that she is one not analysing)
exactly what is going on …
and how it should be (“) made better, stopped, or (vel) cat-o’-nine-tails’d (“)
[I am not obfuscating there; kindly look up “logical disjunction” in Wikipedia for the different truth-versus-falsehood senses of the ‘vel’ type of ‘or’:
from the truth-table it can be seen that the word “or” can at times logically mean “and”].
————-
Baroness Deech quite respectfully and responsibly ‘hands over’ to us when she widens to include “the crowds of words that have become detached from their real meaning and are used to avoid saying what we actually mean …”
and “It would be inappropriate to for me to comment further”.
It is up to us to grasp ‘this baton’, of the abuse and misuse of life-vital words and definitions, and ‘run’ with it, ‘call it aloud’, and ‘write it in’.
————–
That said, I would agree that surely ‘every-one’ is responsible for responding with constructive suggestions,
but not so ad hominem spotlighted as Joe demands when he focuses upon the baroness alone for ‘alternatives’.
I for one have already suggested, and tried to formally propose, that terms such as “ethnic cleansing” and “friendly fire” should be ameliorated simply by therein telling-the-truth:
“ethnic-persecution”
“accidentally shot by own troops”.
I included a whole lot of accurate descriptions in my blog. It depends what was done – abuse, molestation, sexual harassment, assault, racist behaviour, financial fraud etc.
It’s because we’re being dumbed down with a limited attention span. Using too many different words might confuse the masses, plus it allows tabloid journalists (and others) to provide tenuous association between different forms of inappropriate behaviour by lumping them together. After all, if one is labelled for one reason, what other reasons might also be lurking and so encourage the public to buy papers or watch TV to find out more?
Inappropriate behaviour covers all matters pertaining to political correctness and whether you have the right to freedom of expression.
Certainly you have the absolute right to blow the whistle on fat gropers. Straight or Gay. They get away with the behaviour they do because they know full well the recipient will be doubted and that those in places of power will want to cover it up and keep it quiet. Just in case it comes back and shines a light on their own little closet peccadilloes.
Racist speaking is something people do. They compete and call each other names, always have and always will. Just take this one of the daftest racist comments of all, ‘you are a coconut.’ Meaning a brown person with a white mans thinking. So, if you are raised in the Western world and take on the social values or expectations of that part of the planet you should be snubbed by your own as you betray their cultural identity by attaching to those you were raised with, rather than to the ancestry you are part of.
I wonder what the name for those who are European of race and culture who act, perform and speak as if they are from elsewhere? Now there is a conundrum? I suppose the closest is a milky way. So, what are you going to do about it? Imprison the world? It is not simply one brand of people who do it. It is across the board.
So, I think what you are touching on is, good manners. Now here we get into deep water. Who is the arbiter of good manners?
People who grope another who rejects their advances creates a miffed individual as they did not respect the boundaries of convention. They went too far. Now is that considered a criminal offence? Well, in the matter of adults being groped I think that although it is a nuisance and certainly a swearing at them offence, a charge is going a little too far. Unless of course rape came next.
However, when the groping involves a child, it is entirely another matter. That is the use of power over the vulnerable and equality between groper and gropee does not exist. Which leads to requirement of intervention by law.
That aside, should a fat groper be in a position of political power? As this kind of job is one in which expectation of ‘good manners’ and ‘example’ are at their highest it always leaves more than a dirty taste in the mouth when it occurs. It lets us all down. And when a priest oversteps this mark it is indeed a mind changing event. His entire exstance becomes a farce. Everything he stood for is from then on perceived as simply a cover for his internal Edward Hyde.
Gropers and fiddlers always design their lives so that the opportunity to fulfil those inner fetishes come easy. Take Savile. His thing was pubic or younger girls. So he dresses up like a clown and gets into the one thing that attracts teenagers, the entertainment business. The Priest gets into the God game where he has a full spectrum of young boys and youthful men to use his power on. Easy game all at his wine covered fingertips.
Likewise the fat politician with young ambitious and often adoring little people wanting to please. The position of Beadle springs to mind. I can finish you in one nasty snarl, unless, you are a good girl/boy and make my day.
It isn’t only the poor who suffer this kind of inappropriate behaviour. Eton boys were used as fags akin to the Magdalen Laundry girls spat at and abused as deviants, all dine as a result of their vulnerablity. And the one thing nobody wants to address, the child left to be raised by the nanny. We all read how that little case of vulnerability often goes awry. When this has been known and passed over for centuries.
I disagree with your middle paragraph. Complaining that word “inappropriate” is too hollow or sanitised is one thing, but to say that the word doesn’t actually apply to the situations you’ve described is just wrong. A thing can be inappropriate because it is supposed to fit one situation but not the one in question, but it can also be inappropriate because the situation calls for a class of things into which the relevant thing doesn’t fit, regardless of whether there is actually an appropriate time and place for it.
Ultimately, the press have to balance many concerns in writing hard news stories, including not over-sensationalising stories and not introducing bias. Even were your idiosyncratic understanding of the word “inappropriate” standard, its misuse would be a small price to pay to give the press the flexibility it needs in discussing controversial topics.
inappropriate behaviour
I was confronted on a peak time TV show some years ago, with either associating myself with
Jimmy Savile, or seeming like a liar.
I would have given the 6’8″ security man behind the interviewer a jolly good rugby tackle, and not answered the question at all, but regrettably there was some rather nasty looking scaffolding behind him which would have done me as much as I intended to do to him.
“Are you or are you not a paedophile, Mr Howell?” (Kilroy)
“yes or no?”
Given that I had no wish to associate myself
with Jimmy Savile, being a crass and iditoic individual, and NOT being in the least bit aware of his interests, I had to admit that I was one, solely on the basis of being interested in children’s learning at the time.
I have to say that my main recourse, much to my father’s horror, was to shed tears for the benefit of the camera, which was well published.
I had to think fairly rapidly, and the immeasurably sensible Sarah Kennedy agreed to do a little clip before one of her chat programmes which were fairly new styles of programme at the time. I set the record straight for the benefit of channel 4 TV viewers who may well have understood the innuendos and libels set forther by Kilroy.
My well published tears on screen for everybody to see , were for the devil doing good works, the devil being the BBC. Satan has been informed.
May Kilroy and his party rot in the place that the Devil knows best. Nigel Farage too,
and Sarah Kennedy enjoy a well earned retirment.
Inappropriate behaviour
Maude, I suspect that the term applies most to
unwanted attention to a sapphic female from a man who unwittingly takes a fancy to her.
I might add a post script to the publsihed mail above that I was given the choice between being a paedophile OR liking Jimmy Savile.
In view of his lollypop, or was it a medal, program at the time, I was disinclined to align myself with the medal department, and had not considered his likely behaviour behind the scenes. Had anybody, or anybody been had?
I may be the only male who has a case for
making a claim against the said individual’s estate, but then isn’t the BBC perverse in so many of the things it does, noble baroness?
@GaretHugHowell:
It appears in this matter, that the groping individual took a fancy to as many females as he encountered and felt they were all up for his ‘hands on’ benevolence. Which, having stopped to doing this overbearing act of intrusion, meant, he knew he was repulsive and would not find said females receptive to his advances in the natural way of approach.
Meaning, ‘you are very attractive, could I invite you to lunch, dinner, the tour of a museum’ etc.. To willfully explore ones trunk uninvited is more than unreasonable behaviour. It is invasion of ones privacy.
And as far as the definition of ‘unreasonable behaviour’ is concerned, I simply broadened the horizons in the true sense of that word combination. As society has become more deeply connected to that concept in the wider sense than say, 30 or 40 years ago. And what government should be considering is, why is that?
Could it be acceptance of so much ‘unreasonable behaviour’ as the norm, ie; television porn, teaching of sexual deviation rather than simply the biological function to shool children of a very young age, a removal of a sense of restraint at an equally early age, has made all ‘unresonable behviour’ to be considered as reasonable?
The adjective ‘complex’ is increasingly being used by police when describing certain cases or trials to the media. The word jars, causing the police to appear evasive but derives from the relatively recent creation of local ‘Complex Case Units’, I believe.
Re-badging is a much loved, much used tool of public services (for all the wrong reasons) but at least one CCU has ‘fessed up:
“The unit is equipped to deal with the most serious and complex cases including…anything that is likely to attract a high degree of media interest.”
Regrettably, the meme has spread to a certain type of legal firm.
But by far the most irritating, overused, misconstrued “hand of history” epithets are ‘partnership’ and ‘community’; deadly whenever combined.
So what word would you use instead?
Pervert is one.
The Dorset villages which might be said to represent the interests of inappropriate behaviour, have recently decided to object to a number of wind turbines on the basis that they will be 124m high.
To give you an idea of that height here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euston_Tower
The villages have a name which is synonymous with Pis*. Now that the parish council is telling untruths in a thoroughly dishonest fashion about the height of potential turbines should we now say that they are not just all Pi**
but all piss AND wind!?
Are we conservationists or what?
Answers on a postcard as to the name of the river and the villages.
B Deech, apropos a much earlier post of yours* you may be interested in the following link:
http://fullfact.org/factchecks/oxford_university_admissions_race_ethnic_minorities-28794
* http://lordsoftheblog.net/2011/04/12/oxford-blues-whites-and-blacks/