is there a word for when a term signifying a divisive topic becomes acceptable, and then starts being used for so many different things it loses almost all meaning?
A recent example I'm thinking of is 'decolonisation', and I suppose before that 'diversity'.
In reply to @christianp
it seems like all of a sudden decolonisation has become A Thing We Are Going To Do, but I don't get the sense that many people saying that have a clear idea what they mean
In reply to @christianp
I first heard it in South Africa in 2016, where students were trying to force their universities to examine where the material they taught came from, and use traditionally local ways of knowledge more. That felt easy to understand, and definitely didn't have institutional support
In reply to @christianp
now here in Newcastle, I've been in so many meetings and events where decolonisation was mentioned, and it seems to be boiling down to 'teach history', and the people talking about it are largely like me, white and British.
In reply to @christianp
I think this also happens a lot in tech, whenever there's a buzzword that is good to be associated with.
'The cloud' feels like it's lost whatever loose meaning it originally had.
In reply to @christianp
'Hipster' has had a long and varied history, but it had a fairly specific meaning in the early 2000s, before expanding to mean 'anything new I don't like'