My favourite is “space”. I belong to a generation in which space usually related to Outer Space, in which my British comic hero Dan Dare forever battled the Mekon, the over-brained monster who sought world dictatorship over all science from a levitating chair. More mundanely, “space” was the rather dull word my mum and dad used in furnishing a room. Is there enough “space” for the wardrobe in the upstairs bedroom? But no more.
Here, from my personal collection of clippings over 15 years – all can be referenced to the culprits if readers desire – are new uses for “space”:
“A spectacular space in which exploration in depth can take place” (Tony Blair describing a London house in which “interfaith interaction” can occur); “a socially relevant space” (film director Katherine Bigelow talking of her movie work environment); the “spaces created by imperial rule” (Edinburgh University Press on British rule in Aden); “to create a space for alternative thinking and writing” (Denis MacShane on Polish leader Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s cooperation with communist rule); “a functioning commercial space”, “bar-restaurant space”, “non-commercial space”, “public house space”, “two-storey space” and lots of other “spaces” (an English-language Lebanese paper reviewing a cafe in a 19th century Beirut building); “air exhibition space”, “performance space”, and “well-curated space” (all from a Vancouver art gallery brochure); “a reclaiming of space” (an FT reviewer on women in Paris); “a space for different arguments” (an Irish Times feature on a Northern Ireland human rights festival); “to retain a space” (Cambridge historian Hugh Drocon on Nietzsche); and “a radical step change in our development of leaders who can shape and articulate a compelling vision and who are skilled and robust enough to create spaces of safe uncertainty [sic] in which the Kingdom grows” (the Church of England on training bishops).
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