Words have power. That’s the message behind next weekend’s SlutWalk, the local edition of a phenomenon that began earlier this year in response to some distasteful comments by a Canadian police officer, who recommended that, if women wanted to stay safe, they “should avoid dressing like sluts.” To which the founders of the SlutWalk movement said, approximately, “Hell no!” and set out to reclaim the word. These, though, aren’t the only folk looking to subtly shift the connotations of a word. Others have been busy, too.Service. Restaurateurs in Singapore have worked tirelessly for years to convince patrons that “service” is a dirty word, a trivial concept that should be of no concern to anyone. Labelling all those who fixate on service as “self-hating foodies,” a Mr. Way Ter recently warned of a city-wide lock-out if service staff were not given freedom to express their talents for idleness, ill-discipline and insults.Integration. Time was when “integration” meant peace, love and cooking curry with your Chinese neighbors. But, after almost two years of boom times, it’s clear the most valuable form of integration here is that at the Integrated Resorts. Hats off to MBS and RWS for having totally redefined the word. We can now demonstratively assert that Singapore is a successful model for integration! Casinos, luxury brands, sky bars and underemployed gondoliers really can co-exist in harmony!Capacity. A word that once meant the potential headcount a space could accommodate has, thanks to a steady dripfeed of promises, timelines and positive PR from the SMRT, slowly morphed into an arbitrary figure that bears no correlation with reality.Cemetery. For the longest time, “cemetery” meant a sacred place, a place of rest for, well, the longest time. But definititons don’t rest, and meanings wait for no man! What to make of plans to build a road through Bukit Brown? The only conclusion can be that our understanding of the word was wrong. Evidently, cemetery never meant rest, it meant restaurants. It wasn’t about peace, it was about pieces of prime real estate. Bury the old definition six feet under!
