B

Abstract

Experience. As used by what is flatteringly called industry, this word has become both a plague and an absurdity. Until the 1950s, a person’s ‘background’ was his family and education, the dual foundation on which his life was built. From then on, ‘background’ increasingly came to mean, within business circles, one’s working experience and field of specialization, the implication being that the job was the man, and that nothing else mattered. Since the industrial world is not celebrated for its sense of humour, such mirth-provoking sentences as the following became not only possible but normal — ‘You will have a petroleum background’ ( The Daily Telegraph, 21 Jan 1982) and, even more splendid, ‘Your background will be crusty bread’ (Edinburgh Evening News, 6 Nov 1981). A piece of cheese may very suitably have a background of crusty bread, but surely not a human being?