Is it acceptable for our Prime Minister to describe the Calais migrants as a "swarm"

I'm expressing myself by defending Cameron. If I am powerless, I wish to take whatever power I can by using whatever words I feel are right to convey a message I wish to convey, without my thoughts and imagination being fettered by the mealy-mouthed and craven political correctness that you would thrust on me. I would have used the word "swarm" in this context too. I might also have used "horde".

Not everyone views things the same, that's why he should have chosen a more appropiate word to prevent controversy. You are still not getting the point, clearly.

Cameron has not caused confusion. No-one thought the problem in Calais was bees.

Cameron's scriptwriter could not avoid controversy (not even by remaining silent) because Cameron's political opponents were looking for a row to pick. It was the political equivalent of "Are you looking at me, Jimmy?"

He clearly has otherwise we wouldn't be here disputing.



Not really. They aren't waiting for Cameron to slip up then tell him off. He could have avoided controversy (lol I thought I spelt it wrong) by choosing a word that has not as many interpretations (well at least not to animals) because 'swarm' can be used for humans and animals (bees are animals) so it would be considered dehumanising.

I get your mealy-mouthed point. It is invalid. You can choose to add meaning where it wasn't intended. I am able to understand his message as it was intended. He is free to word his message by use of the word "swarm", which is entirely appropriate for the context.

You are missing the point.

Don't be silly. Tourists are swarming is entirely equivalent to a swarm of tourists, just as migrants are swarming is entirely equivalent to a swarm of migrants.

What review of recent language usage are you claiming has happened? Do you mean that you have googled it, or do you mean that some official body has done it? If the latter, then I don't believe you. If the former, then who cares? Google away. My googling indicates, as I showed, that the word is used commonly of humans in all sorts of situations.

Here are some examples of the use of the word recently.

Thankfully you have the ultimate privilege of not being a migrant and being born into a relatively elite environment - no doubt one which has capitalised on some historical oppression of those migrants.

No.

It's deindividuising. Reducing the extent to which we see them as individual people, with individual lives and feelings. Instead he'd rather us view them as a mass, one giant object coming to wreak havoc.


It's a common tactic people use to push agendas, it's used in war. We care less about their suffering if we don't view them as individual people, we just see a swarm. I'm pretty shocked that he so openly used that to be honest, and it makes me feel sad.

I get your mealy-mouthed point. It is invalid. You can choose to add meaning where it wasn't intended. I am able to understand his message as it was intended. He is free to word his message by use of the word "swarm", which is entirely appropriate for the context.

I'm really not. You choose to add some pejorative meaning to the word that wasn't intended. I choose, like all reasonable people, to infer that he wished to allude to the migrants' numbers and, indeed, their deliberate swarming tactics.

These people are swarming; it is deliberate (to increase their chances of getting through). They thus constitute a swarm. Anyone arguing otherwise is, frankly, a couple of ants short of a nest.

Thankfully you have the ultimate privilege of not being a migrant and being born into a relatively elite environment - no doubt one which has capitalised on some historical oppression of those migrants.

Why do you believe I am not a migrant? How would I be responsible for historical oppression of these people? Why should I feel any quilt for it anyway? What has any of that to do with a perfectly straightforward piece of English usage?

You aren't directly responsible for what happened to them; however, you benefit from it by living, I presume (perhaps wrongly, you are right), a relatively comfortable lifestyle. You therefore do have a certain responsibility to show them respect.

Its you being silly, and incredibly so. Your post and this forum concerns 'dehumanisation'. To say migrants are swarming does not 'dehumanise' as 'migrants' are humans described as such. There is a generalisation but it is used neutrally without any connotations - much like 'children' etc. This is fully accounts for a persons humanity and the term swarmed which follows is merely a descriptive word for their actions where the connotations could be either negative or positive depending on what the rest of the context (e.g swarming a funfair is clearly positive). To remove the term 'migrants' entirely and replace it with a word which directly takes away the person from the sentence is dehumanising, literally. To furthermore replace it with a term such as a swarm (as a noun, different to the act of swarming) adds connotations of animals, pests and insects to be specific. This once again is dehumanising, literally.

So in summary: One is a noun, one is a verb. One dehumanises (literally takes the person out of the meaning) and the other does not. Therefore, it is not "entirely equivalent" at all.

Grow up.
Whats the agenda here then?

You aren't directly responsible for what happened to them; however, you benefit from it by living, I presume (perhaps wrongly, you are right), a relatively comfortable lifestyle. You therefore do have a certain responsibility to show them respect.

Maybe the agenda is to reduce the extent to which we give a **** about the suffering of these people?

Is it acceptable to describe the Calais migrants as a "swarm" as David Cameron did yesterday? It does have a bit of a Nazi vibe but the rest of his comments weren't quite as dehumanising...

BBC article on this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33716501