I still haven’t got over aspiration nation, the Chancellor’s watchword in this month’s Budget, which now seems a long time ago. Why is it so annoying?
One aspect is the rhyme. It stops short of being a repetition, like Humbert Humbert, but settles for a jingle, like Gilbert the Filbert. Another annoyance is the jamming together of two nouns. I can see that aspiring nation would have a different meaning, as would aspirant nation, but aspirational nation is more like it.
No doubt the clangour was intentional. There are plenty of precedents. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (a US organisation) has a website called Calculation Nation. Someone in America runs a blog called Information Nation with the subtitle: ‘It rhymes so you know it must be clever.’
The same title was given to a book by two authors called Blair and Kahn, and its subtitle ran: ‘Seven Keys to Information Management Compliance’. I’m not sure I understand those three nouns at the end, but I don’t like the sound of it. Another business-speakish book is Curation Nation, subtitled How to Win in a World Where Consumers Are Creators. ‘How to win what?’ you might wonder. The blurb adds helpfully: ‘Content entrepreneurs must embrace aggregation and curation to grow an existing business’. Content does not mean ‘contented’; and grow does not mean ‘cultivate’ but ‘embiggen’, as another neologism expresses it.
Aspiration in our sense, or near it, was not unknown to Shakespeare. Diomedes, rivalling Troilus in pursuit of Cressida, walks upon his toes, as Ulysses remarks, for ‘that spirit of his / In aspiration lifts him from the earth.’ The metaphor comes from aspiring or panting for something you want. Anyone who respires must expire as much as he inspires, although a final expiration means the game’s up, and you have reached your expiry date.
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