About two years ago I was sat in the audience for a talk by a very earnest, experienced speaker addressing the challenges of aid work in various places across the globe and they (briefly) mentioned terrorism as one aspect of a compilation alongside war. And I swear my mind basically just skipped over it for a second as if rolling it’s eyes. It took a minute for me to conciously remind myself that in this instance it was being used correctly and earnestly. After an adult lifetime of it being a facile buzzword through The Troubles, followed by the West’s global profit-backed religious crusades, the word terrorism reflexively indicated that this wasn’t going to be a serious point by a serious person and I could skip the next part.

I wonder for how many more, especially of the late Gen X to millennial to now generations, hear it the same way? Not as a thought terminating cliché, but an instant indicator that you’re desperately scaremongering and totally full of shit.