Tell me something. Is it just me or have you too noticed a recent trend where one word is freely and frequently misused? I’m talking about the word ‘into’ used as a preposition. For far too many years, I’d been introduced at parties as my husband’s missus, who was into writing. It seemed the word ‘journalist’ was a stretch too far, in language and imagination alike, for the introducers to make. I’d smile in pained fashion and murmur ‘journalist’ almost apologetically. But it would be too late. The persons I’d been introduced to would heartily say, “Ah, into writing, is it? Wonderful.” And I’d give up, defeated by the word.
Luckily those days are far behind me now. But the word ‘into’ hasn’t disappeared from my life or my hearing, not a bit. If anything, it has increased in frequency of usage. Now people are into acting if they have starred in some films, into theatre if they are part of a repertory company, into art if they are artists, into dance if they are dancers… ah, you get the drift, right?
I have been introduced—and I kid you not—to psychiatrists as those into ‘off’ people; physiotherapists as into massage; activists as into protests. While the introducer is oftentimes speaking with absolutely no intention of being condescending, what I’m hearing is language bias, which clearly outs the person using such descriptors. It is a slightly toxic combination of not entirely getting what it is the other person does, not interested enough to find out more, plus an imperceptible disparagement of whatever it is they do for a living.
Quite apart from its general vagueness, the word denigrates what a person does, reducing it to a hobby or interest. The ‘victim’ could make clear just what they do if asked. But here’s the thing. The listener rarely asks. They seem quite satisfied with meeting someone who is into something, and they are ready to leave it at that. There’s also the feminist angle to this word. If it’s about a woman, it doesn’t take rocket science to deduce that it’s a matter of all-round satisfaction to hear the little woman is into something relatively innocuous, but which keeps her busy.
The other day, I was told someone I know was into depression. Even as I cringed on hearing it, I was angry. Someone’s struggle with the black dog is, thus, immediately reduced to some kind of whimsical phase. Equally, it also reveals the speaker’s prejudice, in that they see depression as some sort of a strange beast, which attacks others for reasons known only to the attacked. And underlying it all, there is the confidence that the speaker themselves would never for a moment be ‘into’ suchlike things.
This is the point when the word loses its mildness and acquires a sting. Tell me, wouldn’t you flinch on meeting someone into post-partum baby blues? Or, when you hear of someone else into suicide… before you raise a howl in protest, I must tell you that this is exactly how I was told of a repeat suicide attempt by a young man in my neighbourhood.
So, the next time you hear that someone is into something, clarify just what the ‘into’ means. And the moment you discover that it’s yet another put-down made deliberately or unwittingly, set the matter right, gently and firmly. You owe it to the person being spoken about. You owe it to yourself.
Sheila Kumar
Author
kumar.sheila@gmail.com