I was reading a thread in the Pit or GD that linked to a Canadian news story that used the term “optics” more than once. To me, optics has always been a science and engineering word, and nothing else. But from the context of the story, I gathered that it also means the “appearances” or “public perception” of an act or situation.
Here’s one quote from the story that illustrates the usage:
…Liz Drebit is president of the local CUPE union and, while admitting yesterday that the optics were bad – “yes, I understand the optics,” she says – she would offer little comment beyond stating that the brouhaha over the lowering of the flag is “definitely not a money issue.”…
I am something of a news/politics/public affairs junkie, yet I have never before heard this term used in this way. Is it new? Is it Canadian?
I don’t have any cites, but I have heard certainly the term used before, and I knew immediately what the article meant. No idea whether it’s used south of the border though, and I wouldn’t consider it particularly common up here except among the serious spin-doctors. It’s sort of a noun idiom to go along with the verb idiom “looks”. “It looks bad when we do that” = “That has bad optics”
Which is not a pan-Canadian idiom, but primarily a Central Canadian one. If I hear someone use it, I know they’re not from the Prairies, since our power usually isn’t hydro-based. (no surprise )
I’m not Canadian, but I was a journalism major in college and ran in the same circles as a lot of PR majors, and I’d never heard “optics” used that way before I read that article.
Is it significantly handier than the word “appearance”, which would otherwise seem to fit the bill? I only ask because a side-benefit of using “appearance” would be that it could be readily understood by the majority of English-speakers, for whom “optics” means something else entirely.
I realise, of course, that Public Relations professionals, being primarily in the business of communicating with the public, may not necessarily place a high value on the meaning and content of their words being easily comprehended, but I thought I’d make the suggestion anyway.
I’m not a public relations expert. I am a senior operations manager. I am involved in decision making which affects different groups of people. Clients, employees and various government regulatory agencies.
I use the term optics to describe how an action may be (or has been) perceived by groups who may not have, or don’t care about all of the data available to me when the decision is (was) being made. All they know is what they see and all they care about is how it impacts them. And I don’t expect anything more from them. My job is to try to look at issues from all angles and all perspectives and make a decision that are the least unacceptable to everyone to whom I answer.
I do use the term as a noun, the same way that I would use any other performance rating value. I find that it is a tidy way of asking how something will be perceived by others given what I think their understanding of and possible competing interest in the situation is.
Could appearance substitute for optics? I suppose that it could, though I feel that some nuance would be left behind.
FWIW - I don’t use the term outside of internal company communication.
It turns out that the sense is in OED and is borrowed from the French (which explains the Canadian usage).
Here’s the relevant OED entry:
Optic, 2.c
“A particular way of interpreting or experiencing something; a viewpoint, a perspective.
Freq. in contexts dealing with French literature, critical theory, etc.
1958 French Rev. 31 386 Schehadé’s optic resembles that of Cirardoux insofar as both dramatists tend to see life through the eyes of innocence.”
A Dutch contributor notes that optiek in Dutch can mean 'opinion, ‘point of view’, and that this too comes from the French.
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