What is it with businesses referring to their customers as \u201cguests\u201d?<\/p>\n
Although it\u2019s not the only meaning of the word, I (and I\u2019m sure others) most commonly associate the word with an event and\/or an invitation. Nowadays, I\u2019m a guest on websites unless I have an account, I\u2019m a guest at Tim Hortons, on airplanes, in washrooms\u2026<\/p>\n
What is wrong with \u201ccustomer\u201d or \u201cpatron\u201d? Or is it that these words connote the exchange of currency of the realm and are therefore seedy or dirty?<\/p>\n
I was not invited to take a flight to Regina or Puerto Vallarta or London; I paid for the privilege. I wasn\u2019t invited to have coffee; I walked in and purchased it. Therefore, I don\u2019t regard myself as a guest.<\/p>\n
Of the five dictionaries I checked (US, UK, Canadian dictionaries spanning a 70+year period up to the present day), not one mentioned \u201cticket holder for an airplane flight\u201d under \u201cguest\u201d. On the other hand, every one of them defined \u201ccustomer\u201d as a variant of \u201ca person who buys goods or services from a store or business.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to claim victory here because every dictionary I checked seems to concur with my view to some degree. The politically correct marketing guys can only claim victory if they\u2019re happy for their businesses to be covered by \u201cetc.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGuest\u201d\u2019s origins are in the Teutonic languages. The Oxford Dictionary (both online and a 1950s edition) also mentions a connection with the Latin \u201chostis\u201d, which means \u201cenemy\u201d or \u201cstranger\u201d.<\/p>\n
I was surprised to discover that the Merriam-Webster online dictionary also cites the above etymology. Why the surprise? I had assumed that this abuse of the word \u201cguest\u201d originated in the US and that the marketing guys would have checked out America\u2019s premier dictionary.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not denying that the word no longer means \u201cstranger\u201d or \u201cenemy\u201d\u2014otherwise if I say \u201cbe my guest\u201d to someone, I\u2019d be acknowledging that I could be accused of inviting them to be my enemy. No\u2014my argument is that a perfectly good and unambiguous word\u2014customer\u2014has been dropped in favour of a word that has an association (albeit obscure) with the antithesis of what the marketing guys were trying to achieve. They\u2019ve swapped the very well-known connection between customers and money for ambiguity and the almost-unknown association between guests and enmity.<\/p>\n
My British English dictionary (Collins English Dictionary, 1985 printing of a 1979 edition) has the following for its first definition of \u201cguest\u201d: \u201cA person who is entertained, taken out to eat, etc., and paid for by another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given that definition, and given that these various businesses are referring to me as their guest, it is they (the businesses) who should be footing the bill, not me.<\/p>\n
I wonder how much water this argument would hold in a court of law?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a simple soul. I detest advertising. I see it as the point at which capitalism meets socialism (feel free to ask me why!), and I see it as intrusive, tasteless, manipulative, and environmentally destructive. Advertising uses all kinds of seductive words to work their magic on the locks on your wallet. The marketing people contort and distort the language in order to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, and that\u2019s what I see this \u201cguest\u201d nonsense as. They don\u2019t want any overt connection with money mentioned in their marketing or customer communications materials. So we all become guests.<\/p>\n
I am not a guest. I am a customer. I have money. You have goods and\/or services. I am prepared to exchange my money for your goods or services. You are making money on the deal; I\u2019m acquiring something I want or need.<\/p>\n
We are all happy if we respect those boundaries. I\u2019m not offended by the connection with money. I am offended by the pretence that money isn\u2019t necessarily a critical component of our relationship.<\/p>\n
And if businesses want to call me a patron, or a customer or a punter or a sucker, please; go ahead.<\/p>\n
Be my guest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What is it with businesses referring to their customers as \u201cguests\u201d? Although it\u2019s not the only meaning of the word, I (and I\u2019m sure others) most commonly associate the word with an event and\/or an invitation. Nowadays, I\u2019m a guest on websites unless I have an account, I\u2019m a guest at Tim Hortons, on airplanes, in washrooms\u2026 What is wrong… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[81,78,79,82,80,666],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant","tag-enemy","tag-guest","tag-hostis","tag-marketing","tag-stranger","tag-word-mangling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1567,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}