The strange words you'll only hear in the media

Why must Brexit be discussed 'sotto voce'?

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It is a foundational rom-com trope: girl meets boy and they never quite go on a date. Instead, they keep bumping into one another — on the street, at the latest gallery opening (as far as I can tell, gallery openings exist largely to service HBO mini-series), in the Hamptons. It is as if the Fates themselves have determined that these two must be thrown together until intimacy is achieved.

Weirdly, this is a fairly apt description of my life. Except, in lieu of late-night cocktails punctuated by witty asides, it is words and phrases deployed by journalists. Once I notice them, I keep seeing them everywhere. Some of this, I accept, is confirmation bias. But there is also a genuine lexical herding going on.

I’m not talking about journalese — where job’s aren’t cut, but axed, politicians don’t disagree but clash and football managers never criticise but slam. Nor words that enjoy widespread cultural cut-through, such as “vibe” or “problematic”. This is so much more specific.

Sotto voce (and Brexit)

The OG. Sotto voce, meaning in a quiet voice, often used in music, directing performers to play or sing in a hushed manner. The phrase was deployed constantly throughout the Brexit negotiations. As I recall, it was a particular favourite of James Forsyth when he was political editor of The Spectator.

But it was also used by the BBC, New York Times, Institute for Government, The Guardian, Politico, the Hoover Institution, Financial Times, Reuters, ITV, the Australian Financial Review, The Times, The Independent, Sky News. Even friend of the newsletter, EU in a Changing Europe’s Anand Menon, dropped in the term for a recent article.

I think this reflects the secretive, opaque and at times frankly dull nature of the negotiations. And the fact that there were (and indeed remain) certain things about Brexit that could not be said at normal speaking voice, for fear of telling the truth.

Orthogonal

Perhaps the most Ezra Klein-coded word in the history of the English-speaking peoples.