Revising The Word Friend

Friendship was based on common interests. Friends could reach out and

touch a face. Now they scroll down and click, online profiles.

We need to revisit how we describe things. Time evolves, circumstances change and we re-define things. Some people loath political correctness.  Others are comfortable with it and feel there’s nothing political about it, just a more correct way of describing a situation and people in it.

Historical novels use the word chambermaids because working class women cleaned bedrooms, which were called bed chambers. They emptied princes, lords and earls’ piss pots, made their beds and mopped floors. That’s why we don’t call hotel cleaners chambermaids any more. They are room attendants.

Waiters prefer to be called servers because they serve people @ Table 4, 5 and 6. Little do they know it started with the royal family. Working class men and women were ‘in service.’ They were not forbidden from getting married but if they did, they were dismissed from the Queen’s service.  

Serving the British royal family was a lifetime achievement. In her book, The Little Princesses, Marion Crawford, who was Queen Elizabeth’s governess, wanted to leave a few times. The Queen’s mother stopped her because Lilibet and Princess Margaret were still young.

Here we are in the digital age, where friends are not the boy and girl next door, secondary school, in the soccer team, church choir, office, factory or barbershop. We are always reminded of that when LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media platforms suggest that we ‘be-friend’ certain people.

It is no longer a matter of choice. Therefore, we need a new definition for ‘friend.’

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.