If there was any justice in this world, sampling would be known as détourning. Except there is no such word as détourning–even though there is! People use it, yes, mostly Anglophones. It’s the opposite of franglais. It’s an English appropriation of the French. Anglench? E-wrench? Deep fired snail?

Apparently, there are no English equivalents to détourner or détournement. And the Anglicised versions–détourning, détourned–are awful bastards, not quite French, not quite English, something in-between. No doubt Deleuzians love this type of shit. Except they don’t. If they did, they would dispense with the terms deterritorialization and reterritorialization and replace them with the more ancient situationist terms from which they are divertjacked: détournement and récupération.

Unquestionably, I’m dreaming. That’s history in any case, a five-thousand-year-old fever dream from which the collective species will one day wake up. Maybe.

Détourner and détournement are proper French words, unlike détourning. The masculine noun détournement: a diversion, embezzlement, a hijacking. The verb détourner: to divert or to hijack. Properly speaking, it would be better to use the present participle détournant (diverting) or the pass participle détourné (diverted).

What if we came up with an English neologism? Divert or hijack are two perfectly serviceable words for détourner or détournement–here I am just taking Orwell’s advice regarding plain speaking. If we don’t want to use hijack or divert–or the more passive found as in “found art”–how about how about this: divertjack.[1]

Following from the oft repeated claim that détournement refers to both diverting and hijacking why not wack them together? And Divertjack is, after all, a portmanteau term–the latter being a French word divertjacked into English.

Divertjack it is. Diverjacking. Divertjacked. It sounds autoerotic, potentially sadomasochistic, and gym bro all at once.

FOOTNOTE

[1] Hiverting is another, inferior alternative.