Why “Moral turpitude” Is Good

I came across a report in the newspaper this morning, a court report of a psychiatrist who had been struck off the medical register by the President of the High Court, Mr. Justice Peter Kelly. The learned Judge found that the consultant psychiatrist was guilty of professional misconduct and “moral turpitude” for being involved in a relationship with a vulnerable patient. The patient had suffered with bi-polar disorder and suffered from post-traumatic stress and was “a highly vulnerable person”.

What piqued my interest about this report, however, was the use of the phrase “moral turpitude”. It is not the type of phrase you come across in everyday social intercourse or at the water cooler or shop or factory floor of your workplace.

I love when Court decisions and comments by Judges in delivering judgment contain such phrases, though, because I have always loved words.

I have also always loved phrases and sentences and paragraphs and books and reading and literature. And all of these things start with a single word.

Words in the English language have been under assault for a while now thanks mainly, I believe, to the dumbing down of language and words by Americans. The overuse of words like “awesome” and “so” and “super” has, regrettably, spread to this side of the world and it appears to be a type of linguistic race to the bottom in an effort to reduce the English language to simple words of one or two syllables which are used in all circumstances.

For example, describing something as “super good” or “super bad”. These types of phrases are to be heard every day of the week in all types of settings and contexts and are so devoid of colour and description and vividness as to make me want to throw up.

The influence of US culture in spreading this virus of verbal diarrhoea to this part of the world has caused ordinary Joes from Tipperary and Donegal and Wexford to appear in the media spewing this nonsense.

So, regardless of what you think of the legal system in this country, regardless of how you view Judges, credit is due to for fighting the good fight in endeavouring to hold onto the English language-the full version in all its pomp and power, not the simplified, emasculated, shrunk down  version in which “super” and “awesome” reign like the plague.

Definition of turpitude

The definition of “turpitude”, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is Depraved or wicked behaviour or character.

The origin of the word is from the late 15th century: from French, or from Latin turpitudo, from turpis ‘disgraceful, base’.

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