Welcome to Society. These sophisticated apartments feature resort-inspired amenities and luxurious in-home finishes. Step inside these one, two, or three bedroom apartments and become enveloped in a soothing, elegant color palette…
— from the Society-Henderson website
No doubt the developers of the Society apartments, outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, thought they had the right idea, picking a name that connotes luxury and sophistication.
But they might have been on the wrong side of history.
“Society” ain’t what it used to be. These days, no one in their right mind wants the word “Society” in their organization’s name.
If we can believe Lamestream Media reports, the Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society International will unite, this month, under a new name:
Humane World for Animals
No more “Society” for these folks.
It’s apparently a trend, to get rid of the word “Society”. The New-York Historical Society recently changed its name to “The New York Historical”. Thus proving that “Historical” can function as a noun as well as an adjective.
And when CAS — “Catskill Art Society” — decided to update their name in 2022, the “CAS” got repurposed to mean “Catskill Art Space.”
According to the CAS executive director, “That term ‘Society’ feels a bit insular and stuffy.”
If there’s any group that cannot afford to feel insular and stuffy, it would surely be an association of retired watercolorists.
I learned about this new trend in a recent Washington Post article by Mark Lasswell.
Unfortunately, there are literally thousands of organizations around the world that use the word “Society” in their name. Too many to count, really.
National Geographic Society
Royal Society of Chemistry
Menopause Society
Flat Earth Society
Autism Society
Scotch Malt Whisky Society
John Birch Society
IEEE Computer Society
Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
Yokoso Watashi No Soul Society
The list goes on, and on. Societies large and small.
English language usage of the word “society” dates in the 1500s, derived from Latin societatem meaning “fellowship, association, alliance, union, community.” It originally referred to an association of persons for some specific purpose, like a group, or a club. Later on, people began using it to reference larger groups of individuals who share a common culture, customs, beliefs, and institutions.
But then, rich people got a hold of the word.
The sense of “fashionable people, and their activities” — as in “high society” — is in use by the early 1800s. And that’s where the problem really started.
Hollywood probably didn’t help matters.
As we all know, when the rich people get their hands on something that belonged to everybody, it’s downhill from there. ‘Society’ starts to feel insular and stuffy. And the richer the rich people get, the more insular and stuffy the word sounds.
Of course, we still have a few “Societies” here in Pagosa Springs, which consist mainly of volunteers doing good things for the community.
The Humane Society of Pagosa Springs
Weminuche Audubon Society
Pagosa Peak Genealogical Society
Pagosa Springs Instrumental Music Society
San Juan Historical Society
Pagosa Springs Choral Society
I expect we’ll see all of them change their names in the near future. Unless they want to be insular and stuffy.
In fact, the Pagosa Daily Post is sort of like a club of volunteer journalists, but I’m thankful — considering the way things seem to be headed — that we never included the word “Society” in our name. If we’re anything, we’re not insular and stuffy. Well… maybe insular, but not stuffy.
In fact, our editor has already warned me that this is the last humor article I will be allowed to post, that includes the word “Society”.