A word overused, misused and abused

Here are photographs of five people who were all described, in completely separate news items on a single day last week, with the same word. Do you recognise them? And can you guess the word?

From the top:
Lt Cdr Chris Gotke
Madonna
Staff Sgt Kate Lord
Lance Corporal Joshua Leakey
Margaret Thatcher

And why were they in the news?
Lt Cdr Chris Gotke: awarded a medal for crash landing a plane safely during an air show.
Madonna: for taking a tumble at the Brits awards ceremony in London.
Staff Sgt Kate Lord: awarded a medal for establishing an innovative training programme for female Afghan soldiers.
Lance Corporal Joshua Leakey: the latest soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in Afghanistan.
Margaret Thatcher: for her part in the Miners' Strike of 30 years ago.

And the common word used to describe them (and their actions)?
Hero.

And that's not all. A quick search of recent BBC headlines gives us the following: Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, comes to us as a 'hero' of financial circles; one of the judges on Dragon's Den is, apparently, an entrepreneural 'hero'. Good grief, even a celebrity chef has been given the status of a 'hero' of the kitchen.

Let's go to a dictionary for a definition:

HERO (Definition): “A person distinguished by courage and admired for brave deeds. A person who has noble qualities and has performed selfless acts. Regarded as a model or an ideal for others due to heroic action.

Hero, a word that gets thrown around a lot, but is not always deserved. It's yet another word that is in danger of becoming meaningless because it is used to describe so many different people for so many different reasons - as in the above list. Its overuse means that the original meaning is getting lost. Which means that those who truly deserve the title are then lumped in with those who have manifestly not made the same sacrifice. Try comparing the actions of those I've mentioned and think which one (and in my opinion, there is only one) really deserves the epithet of 'hero'.

Now to the related but much trickier topic of calling all soldiers heroes. I understand the emotional need for some to do this as it allows families to feel their child did not serve, and possibly die, in vain. And in our sound-bite driven political climate, I certainly understand the political requirement that every elected official cite the word over and over while talking of soldiers. After all, it justifies their own war mongering decisions that shed other people's lives. But in reality, the word hero doesn’t apply to every person just because an individual enlists and wears a uniform. Unfortunately we seem to have become fond of the term hero for all sorts of overly nationalistic and political reasons. Don't we insult our true heroes when we throw the term around so casually? Don't we insult the likes of Joshua Leakey when we lump him in with Madonna and Thatcher?