As I’ve written many times before, Norman French had a lasting effect on the language now known as English. The three great traumas for this our indomitable Island Fortress were the two Roman invasions, the irregular and somewhat gratuitous pillage of the Norsemen, and the Norman victory at Hastings in 1066. The varietal exchange of bodily fluids that followed each of these events toughened us up sufficiently to resist further invasion and, ultimately, build the largest Empire ever seen. Given the cost of air travel these days, it’s a record that will probably never be broken.

But by far the strongest linguistic link is that with Norman French, and it is a telling link whose significance usually goes unnoticed. One word we have in common is comment. We of course pronounce it komm-ent because that’s the way the bloody thing’s spelt, whereas the French flibberty-gibberts say kommorn because they’re awkward and generally illogical. But while the meaning and usage of this word appear to have veered off in totally different directions over the last millennium, it isn’t really like that at all: it’s the professionals who, as usual, have divagated* themselves into an easier role for the word.

Gentle ribbing aside, there was always a gloriously rich melange in Conqueror French between functional clarity and emotional subtlety. Thus the translation of ‘comment’ is more than just ‘how?’ or ‘I beg your pardon?’: as a word, it’s really to do with ‘how does this work, why have we arrived here, and how are things going?’ Hence Comment allez-vous – these days more commonly, comment ca va: what’s up?

So from this comes the word commentator: someone who speaks, writes, or broadcasts on the subject of what’s going on and why. Commentators are in turn often critical – they offer a critique – and if they are felt to be influential, then their intervention can be “critical to the course of events’ – that’s to say, important and significant. Someone is thus described as critically ill, a crisis may be said to have become critical, a ‘critic’ tries to deconstruct or explain the meaning of a piece of art, and so on.

My observation tonight (if I might be allowed to adopt the role of observer of the commentariat) is that media comment is pointless if all it produces is hagiographic support for agendas, or gratuitous insults aimed at the opposing viewpoint. From ‘how and why’ comes the dictate that the commentator must by definition analyse the model and draw conclusions about its efficacy. (The very term commentariat, it seems to me, has merely added the Soviet ‘ariat’ suffix as a means of quite rightly trying to suggest that most comment today is nothing more than knee-jerk Party Line drivel.)

Ultimately, the purpose of a commentator is to enlighten through reasoned critique. If I were to change anything in the Benthamite philosophy of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ it would be to replace happiness with enlightenment. But in the digital-virtual-information overload-spin riddled age, it is frighteningly easy to disguise self-serving propaganda and vacuous bigotry as enlightenment.

Commentary online by those of critical bent, open mind and good heart is the last barricade that stands between civilisation and barbarianism. It is not about directing the crowd towards the stoning, nor is it about updating the scoreboard on Christians v Lions. It is and always has been about questioning the evidence for received truth: about, in fact, asking “Comment?”

* I will fess up to the fact that this is my Frogbif invention from the French word ‘divagation’ which means to meander about in an enjoyable but otherwise pointless manner. What we need is a new scandal involving a chanteuse and a senior politician, so the media can dub it ‘Divagate’ – and thus discover yet another Weapon of Mass Distraction.

Earlier at The Slog: Towards a real definition of ‘food poverty’