Totemic : you read about it here first

It was on “Peston” on Wednesday evening, I think, among all the tortured arguments about Brexit, that I heard someone use the word “totemic”. For an instant I thought it might have been “titanic”, but no, I heard correctly, though from the context I wasn’t sure whether it meant “very important” or something to do with placing a symbolic marker. A day or two later, on another TV programme, I heard someone use the word again, but its intended meaning failed to register with me. It might have been about Brexit again and I might just have nodded off.

Well then. Is “totemic” about to become the new all purpose hyperbole, for anything in any respect remotely humungous or ginormous? For something particularly “cool”, perhaps? Even for something - like the choice of colour (blue) for my wife’s new car, as described by the sales assistant – “awesome”. I’ve heard “awesome” being used to describe everything from a soggy slice of ham and pineapple pizza, to a mobile phone, to the Grand Canyon, to the vista of the heavens on a clear night, so evidently its definition is in need of tightening. Or replacing. “Totemic” could be just what we need. “Wow, I’m like, OMG, so I’m like, that paint job is so totemic”.

Will “totemic” replace “iconic” as the descriptor of anything that’s the paradigm specimen of its kind, unique, or modestly notable? Will the Shard become “totemic”, or will it still be just an ugly gesture of contempt for the common man  – one of a large and growing number of such gestures - intrusively visible across our capital city? Will the Big Mac no longer be merely iconic, but a totemically invaluable component of a healthy diet? Will Mrs May’s premiership go down in history as the most totemic since that of Neville Chamberlain?

My Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, published in 1977, defines “totem” as “any species of living or inanimate thing regarded by a class or kin within a local tribe with superstitious respect as an outward symbol of an existing intimate unseen relation”. Adjective, “totemic”. So that’s crystal clear then, isn’t it. It also mentions totem poles, so – given that Poland is a member of the EU – perhaps newer meanings lurk unsuspected within. Dictionaries just can’t keep up, and online definitions need to be treated with caution. My Collins English Dictionary (2004) refers to totem as (1) “(in some societies, esp among North American Indians [sic]) an object, animal, plant, etc, symbolizing a clan, family, etc, often having ritual associations; (2) a representation of such an object – adjective totemic. It offers further elaboration about totem poles but doesn’t say anything as to whether they could be used for stringing up our spineless Brexit-bungling MPs. Or whether tall spikes upon which said invertebrates could be impaled would be more suitable.

 
So we’ll keep our ears open for this word and, if it takes off, we’ll discover in due course what people want it to mean, and how long it takes before becoming appropriated for the name of an upmarket chiropodist.