Let's have the word 'surreal' back

It’s become one of the most overused words

Let’s have the word ‘surreal’ back. Please. It comes from the art movement surrealism. It’s a French term that, loosely translated,  means “superior-reality.”

Dictionary definitions give it as: having the qualities of surrealism, bizarre, not seeming real, marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream, unbelievable, fantastic.

Think melting clocks, elephants carrying cathedrals on their backs, tigers coming out of the mouths of flying fish.  As one art historian said, it  does NOT mean  creepy or  confusing. Neither does it mean unreal, or just plain out of the ordinary. And today it is even sometimes used to mean the everyday plain ordinary, even the mundane. Sorry, but playing darts against Phil ‘the Power’ Taylor, or working in an Amazon fulfilment centre are not surreal. Unless you are playing darts against Phil ‘the Power’ Taylor in an Amazon fulfilment centre which is on the back of an elephant coming out of the mouth of a flying fish.

As Andy Green, from Barry Island, explained in a letter to the Financial times:

“Sir, Can the sub-editors at the FT please crack down on the misuse of the word ‘surreal’? Your report on coalition talks among German parties featured Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, saying: “It’s been a surreal week.” Unless he was referring to dolphins, Fritz the Cat or giant cucumbers joining the negotiations, I presume he means “unreal”. My heroes Luis Buñuel and René Magritte would be turning in their banana skins if they witnessed such a misuse of their noble cause.”