I didn't know I was old already at 37, but when I was young, the word societal was not even related to social: literally pertains to society, which without further qualification is the general group of "all of us" — whereas e.g. the "Audio Engineer Society" is the group of that field.

Society is opposed to private, fragmented circles ("some" audio engineers, "some" people), subset communities contained in society. Externally, society as opposed to other societies i.e. countries or cultures.

Then one day some r/Iamverysmart self-proclaimed intellectual heard "societal" and liked the word, emotionally, and began using it — that's how you learn words, right? By using them. Trial and error.

So, so many errors.

But others liked it too. And ever more. Lovely errors. And suddenly because people confused it with "social", it began an "umbrella concept" for "everything involving many people doing stuff together". Sure, that works for society and social matters. It's also as empty a concept as you can make. But in the Twitter age, it's OK to use 1 word to mean 20 things and never detailing any of it,

because fuck.

Agreed.

The truth is so few people care, it's not even worth the time to delete -et-. Those who do care, speak with others who understand, and ignore the rest. Sad state of affairs, but I've grown convinced it's just human nature, and has been virtually forever.

On that particular topic, I definitely recommend reading François Héran's 1991 article "Pour en finir avec « sociétal »" [1].

[1] https://www.persee.fr/doc/rfsoc_0035-2969_1991_num_32_4_4079

Thanks, that made my day :).

Sociétal is mostly about values and social is about the community.

Hence why we say sécurité sociale et non sécurité sociétale.

When you create words that don't exist you can put any meaning behind them I guess.