Dirty Little Words

"So, are you an environmentalist?" the workman asked. Anywhere else, my answer would have been unhesitating. But I was at my cabin in Wyoming, surrounded by high-elevation conifers and sagebrush meadows, nestled between parcels of federal lands, and almost an hour from the nearest town. He didn't look up from his nail gun, and I kept my eyes on the earth beneath my shovel.

"Depends on what you mean by that," I said, and instantly felt ashamed at my evasion.

Last year at the University of Utah, where I teach communication, I conducted six focus groups of professionals who communicate about natural resources for a living. I wanted to learn about the challenges they face in getting their messages across to the general public. What they taught me were the dirty little words that they "try to talk around": environmentalist, environmentalism, and environment. The participants said they prefer euphemisms: a "conservationist" or "passionate person" to denote an environmentalist, and "open space" or "viewshed" instead of environment. The "e-words" were bad, too emotional, barriers to critical thought.