A reader from Chennai sent in this query — “Sir, I came across the word ‘presstitute’ in a newspaper. I don’t find the word in any dictionary. What does it mean? Is it a new word?”
The word ‘presstitute’ has been in news for the past few weeks and it has been the topic of discussion among Indian journalists, media critics and users of social media. Making a caustic remark on the media, Minister of State for External Affairs Gen VK Singh tweeted: “Friends what do you expect from presstitutes. Last time Arnab thought there was ‘O’ in place of ‘E’.” Reacting to it, the general secretary of the Broadcast Editors’ Association (BEA) said: “We condemn it. I am surprised that a member of Union council could comment like this ... How can he utter such a word? In a civilised society, even for the prostitutes, we don’t use this kind of word…”
Is it a derogatory term? What does it mean? It is easy to guess the meaning of the word. The portmanteau word is a combination of ‘press’ and ‘prostitute’. The Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) defines the term as “a person in power who sells out for some personal gain, betraying his/her supposed ideals”. The word does not refer to powerful unethical journalists alone. It refers to any influential person who behaves in an unethical manner.
Even before Singh used the word ‘presstitute’ to refer to journalists who practice unethical journalism, many have used the term in their tweets. Here is a February 23 tweet:
Crooks on same stage. NGO’s puppet ‘Anna’+YasinMalik+Media #Presstitute NDTV+Naxal Kejriwal+Italian Mafia
When VK Singh used the word ‘presstitute’, he had yellow journalists in mind. ‘Yellow journalism’ refers to the type of journalism that relies on sensationalism and exaggeration and is not based on research. His use of the word ‘presstitute’ was condemned because the word ‘prostitute’ has a negative connotation in our society. Even prostitutes consider ‘prostitute’ a derogatory and insensitive word and prefer the term ‘commercial sex workers (CSW)’. The reason is ‘prostitute’ is judgmental whereas ‘commercial sex worker’ is descriptive and not associated with negative cultural baggage.
Ever since VK Singh used the term ‘presstitute’ on Twitter and news channels discussed it, many have used the term in their tweets. Here is a tweet by Shobha De:
#Proud to be a Presstitute! Better than being a Joker General!
The electronic and social media has popularised the term ‘presstitute’ and soon we can expect the word to be added to the English lexicon.
English is an evolving language. As there is a need to create new words to denote new concepts, creative users of the language exercise inventiveness and coin new words. Many new words are portmanteau words. A portmanteau word is coined by combining the first part of a word and the second part of another word. Here are examples of portmanteau words: Shopaholic, Screenager and Frenemy.
rayanal@yahoo.co.uk