CCChat April 2025.pdf - Flipbook - Page 43
VoLACKbulary
Do you sometimes find it hard to describe the impact of coercive
control? There is so much more than resorting to a tick list of generic
phrases, yet we lack the words to adequately describe the lived
experience of coercive control.
It has often been said that the Inuit have 50 different words for snow. The large number of words
show the relationship between the vocabulary of a language and the physical environment in which
that language is used, so it makes sense that living somewhere where there is a lot of snow will yield
a large vocabulary to reflect that.
According to Susan Rennie, a Lecturer in English and Scots Language at the University of Glasgow,
weather has been a vital part of people’s lives in Scotland for centuries and the number and variety
of words show how important it was for ancestors to communicate about the weather, which could
so easily affect their livelihoods. To illustrate this, 421 words for snow have been found, including
feefle - to swirl
flindrikin - a slight snow shower
snaw-pouther - fine driving snow
spitters - small drops or flakes of wind-driven rain or snow
unbrak - the beginning of a thaw
sneesl- to begin to rain or snow
feuchter- to fall lightly or come down in odd flakes.
Skelf - a large snowflake.
Yet there are very few words to describe the subjective lived experience of being subjected to
coercive control, which is routinely bespoke to the victim and very often shows very little outwardly
signs as evidence.
