The list of things that make Severance’s Lumon Industries incomparably eerie is long: There’s the foreboding, monolithic building filled with dizzying, nondescript hallways. There are the oft-misplaced company-sanctioned attempts at camaraderie and joy. And, of course, there’s the off-kilter vocabulary that’s indelible to the company’s control over everyone it employs (and some it doesn’t).

Lumon’s vernacular may at first seem par for the course for sci-fi — it’s an odd and specific repertoire that makes the viewer remember that this is not our world. In this case, though, it’s not just the writers communicating with the viewer. “Fetid moppet” is the insult Jame Eagan spits at his daughter in season 2, episode 2, after her innie escapes and makes a scene. Helena Eagan looks down in shame, or perhaps a bit of anger; the insult alone is enough punishment. The remark, literally, means “smelly child” — to our ears, a strange if not outright misplaced insult. Certainly, there is a more biting insult Jame could’ve leveled at Helena. Some might’ve even expected him to berate her at length. But at Lumon, it’s clear even just these two words make a devastating accusation and a profound offense.

That’s because Lumon has established its own vocabulary and vernacular as a method of control, and as a way to construe who is “in” and who is “out” when it comes to being in Lumon’s good graces. And like any good........

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