Another Word For It

Said around the dinner table on Saturday by one of our guests (actually, my son): “I took debate in high school, and that is not debate.” So true, we all agreed. I’ve been saying the same thing for I don’t know how many election cycles, and it’s never been truer than this year, and whenever the subject cannot be avoided, I have resorted to “so-called ‘debate’” as my verbal reference. But the modification of the noun was still unsatisfying.

There must be something else we could call it, I kept thinking. But what?

Confrontation? Yelling match? Reality TV? All seemed at least partially appropriate but, again, unsatisfying, failing to get at the tragic heart of the disappointment. It is, after all, American democracy and perhaps the future of political freedom in the world that are at stake.

During the Monday morning early radio news, the word came to me: debacle. I said it aloud, trying it out.

“What? What are you referring to?”

“Instead of ‘debate,’ you know. What to call it. I’m going to call it ‘debacle.’”

The de- prefix makes the substitution particularly appropriate and calls up adjectives such as debased, degraded, and demeaned. Like debased and debate, it also contains the voiced bilabial plosive, with which a speaker can vent emotions such as disgust and disdain – Bah! -- while the hard C shading into a final L hints at spectacle, calling up sound and fury and barkers and circuses. And, of course the dictionary meaning....

When political satisfaction fails, there is some satisfaction to be found in the right word.

Late in the afternoon, glancing at Facebook, I saw that one of my friends had used the phrase “debacle of a debate.” Yes, Linda! You, too? But can we trim away the official designation we all agree does not pertain and be content with a single word to sum up what took place?

Debacle: “a stunning, ruinous collapse or failure, often ludicrously calamitous.” (New World Dictionary, 4^th meaning)

Calamity inviting laughter? Joking at the approach to the gallows? Debacle!