Contact, when used as a verb, is another word that once prompted peeving. In fact, in the 1930s, an official at Western Union lobbied for a company-wide ban on the word, which he deemed a hideous vulgarism compared to the phrases “get in touch with” or “make the acquaintance of.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Contact as a Verb”
We talked early in the show about the word pessimism and how there used to be a lot of pushback against introducing that word into the English language.
Here’s another word that really got people’s hackles up back in the 1930s, the word contact as a verb, to contact somebody.
In 1931, an official at Western Union wanted to ban the use of contact completely throughout the company and said that, quote, the loathsome person who invented this hideous vulgarism should have been destroyed in early childhood.
Oh.
And he went on to say, so long as we can meet, get in touch with, make acquaintance of, be introduced to, call on, interview or talk to people, there can be no apology for contact.
I really think that rejecting neologisms is part of that human animal where we reject the outsider.
It is a way of being intentionally unwelcoming so that outsiders don’t try to interlope with your resources and your, you know, your womenfolk or that sort of thing.
I don’t even know. It’s just something caveman-like about that automatic rejection of new words.
I know, right? Yeah.
Yeah, it’s like you go to all the trouble to learn a pronunciation a certain way or a verb a certain way and then somebody replaces it.
Wow, yeah.
So it’s like somebody coming in.
I’m going to steal your food.
Weird.
Yeah.
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