Ertblog

A promise: my letter in The Guardian

Today's Guardian includes a short letter from me on one of my favourite topics: how simple phrases are being replaced by ugly, longer ones.

It was prompted by a letter from Mary Williams about a query in the paper's Notes & Queries column asking why many people now say train station instead of railway station. In my letter I asked what fool decided to replace the lovely expression 'keeping a promise' with the horrible 'delivering on a promise'. 

Politicians and business leaders are the worst offenders. (The founder of BlackBerry-maker RIM, Mike Lazaridis, used a variation, 'deliver on a goal', in a RIM YouTube video saying sorry to customers whose smartphones had been out of action for days.) 

I've never understood why business people and politicians use gobbledegook. The simple way to get a message across is to use plain English. But as I've said many times on Ertblog, too many think simple language is somehow inadequate or unimpressive. The opposite is true.

On the subject of language, I discovered Tim Phillips' Talk Normal blog today. I loved the post about the nonsense spoken by sports commentators. Tim confirms the suspicion that politicians use obscure language to make unpalatable messages unintelligible - take this example from the HS2 high speed rail proposals. 

 

 

 

Obama in Britain: let's stop talking of special relationship

An essential relationship? Photo © Prime Minister's Office

President Barack Obama's visit to Britain has been a huge success. We like America's 44th president. We're touched by his place in history as the first black president. And we cheered his election, as I blogged at the time. So the fact Obama has stolen hearts is no surprise. 

But I was dreadling the visit, in a small way, as I knew it would prompt a wave of comments about whether Britain and America shared a 'special relationship'. This is an obsession of politicians and the media. Yet no one in the bars of London, Cardiff or Edinburgh would give it a moment's thought. If they did, they'd surely point out that the UK and US have lots of relationships with lots of countries. And then get back to talking about Ryan Giggs.

Yet The Times carried an Obama and Cameron article lauding the essential relationship. 

It's true that Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt forged a very close relationship during our darkest days, the second world war. But the war leaders weren't in total harmony: FDR was soon tormented by WSC's wilder ideas, and Churchill was rightly frustrated and frightened by FDR's complacency about Soviet designs on eastern Europe. 

And all this talk of a special relationship encourages the two countries' addiction to military adventures, as the Guardian's Simon Jenkins comments today. At a time when the BBC's World Service (not to mention all our public services) has had its spending slashed, David Cameron miraculously found £1 billion to burn on a war in Libya that has absolutely nothing to do with Britain. Yet a BBC reporter said in all seriousness that America thinks Britain should spend more on 'defence'. 

Britain admires America and its president. But neither country has any reason to spin an idea of a mythical special relationship.

 

(What's the narrative) morning glory?

(With apologies to Oasis...)

Why do people feel simple words aren't good enough? This question has featured before in Ertblog. I called it word inflation in a January 2008 post asking if we need a language policy committee. 

My current gripe is the way the lovely word 'story' is being replaced by 'narrative'. Columnists seem the worst offenders, as regularly seen in The Guardian's comment pages:

"Privately, they know human tragedy is a raw material ready to be forged into facile tabloid narratives.." Richard Peppiatt

Why do they do it? Surely journalists of all people should know better than replace simple words with overblown buzzwords? 

If you can't beat them, join them. Here are a few suggestions:

Bedtime narrative

Rags to riches narrative

Tell us a narrative

Narrative time

Same old narrative

Narrative teller

Love narrative

Never ending narrative (sorry, Limahl...)

Multi-narrative car park (oops, wrong storey...)

 

Why is The Guardian addicted to swearing?

The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones blogged today (Prudish about politics) about how he's been shocked by the foul language used by political bloggers and tweeters since he's been covering the general election campaign. His post was prompted by the fate of Labour candidate Stuart MacLennan, who made a string of offensive comments on Twitter. 

But my favourite paper seems just as addicted to language I'd never use in front of my mother. The Guardian's style guide is clear: the paper should not casually use words that are likely to offend, but should use them only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case when the paper needs to use a swearword outside direct quotes.

Yet the paper routinely ignores such sensible advice. On Good Friday, it published a letter from reader Patrick McNamee that included the f-word. It was part of a weak joke about the The Guardian's April Fool about Labour's election posters, and could hardly be regarded as necessary. Saturday's paper included the f-word in Charlie Brooker's television review and in an interview with Jonathan Ross and in a profile of actor Kayvan Novak. (The last two examples were at least in direct quotes.) A quick search suggests other instances in print and online. 

The Guardian's former readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth pointed out in her Open door column in 2008 that the printed paper used the f-word 843 times in 2007, compared with 33 times in 1985. Many people will hardly notice such profanity, as society generally effs and blinds far more casually than it did 25 years ago. But I find it strange that a paper so highly regarded for its stylish writing thinks swearing is necessary.

 

So much for the language of Shakespeare: Virgin Media chief explains job cuts

"These changes are critical to ensuring Virgin Media is positioned to compete effectively and deliver on our customers' changing expectations," said Virgin Media's chief executive Neil Berkett. (See BBC's report.)

Ugh. I hope he doesn't talk like that at home. Imagine bathtime in the Berkett household: "Darling, we need to deliver on our offsprings' hygiene requirements."

In praise of Great Britain

Team Great Britain's triumph at the Beijing Olympics has cheered the country. For me, the fact that we're competing as Great Britain is part of the pleasure. 'Great Britain' has a certain ring to it that warms the heart in the way that 'United Kingdom' never does. (It helps that even the abbreviated 'GB' sounds nicer than 'Youkay'...) And, as a Welshman, I have to say that Beijing shows that we're stronger united than alone.

Time to tackle word inflation

Apologies, this post will upset anyone who hates Lynne Truss and her campaign against poor punctuation and other crimes against English...

We've got the Bank of England's monetary policy committee to tackle price inflation - the way prices creep up while you're not looking. It's time to bring in a language policy committee to do something about word inflation: people and organisations using two words or more when one would do the job perfectly.

Train companies insist on telling us we're arriving into Leeds, which will be our next station stop. (We wouldn't get out if the train didn't stop...) E.ON's chief executive tells the BBC his company is closing out old coal power stations. Other executives talk of building out their presence in new markets. And don't get me started about heading up...

No doubt most people don't notice or care. But this kind of language is ugly and verbose. It's an example of how jargon numbs the senses: it's a barrier to communication. Anyone who communicates for a living should do better. Time to join the language policy committee...

Is an actress an actor?

The Guardian's corrections column yesterday raised a laugh with the anti-political correctness brigade.

A rigid application of the Guardian style guide caused us to say of Carlo Ponti in his obituary, page 34, January 11, that in his early career he was "already a man with a good eye for pretty actors ..." This was one of those occasions when the word "actresses" might have been used.

Farepak's crash: not a national emergency

A company called Farepak, which provides Christmas hampers, has gone bust. It's terrible news for people who have lost money as a result, which they can ill afford to lose. But it's crazy that a man called Ian McCartney, who you may not know is our consumer affairs minister, calls it a national emergency.

A generation who lived through 1940, when Britain faced invasion and round the clock bombing, will think Mr McCartney has led a very sheltered life if he thinks this is a national emergency. 

"Welsh are the best English speakers" - ardderchog!

We Celts like to think we have the gift of the gab. Why else would we dominate the media, the arts, politics and PR? But it was still nice to read in today's Independent that the writer Andrew Taylor has concluded that the finest English is often be spoken by the Welsh.

Ardderchog!