Nothing makes me happier than reading stories about the imminent demise of ‘social media networking’, even when they’re published in my least favourite newspaper. But wouldn’t you know… just as everyone else is growing out of this puerile nonsense, the World Economic Forum (who are meeting for their annual shin-dig in Davos this week) are embracing it.
It was only about a week ago that the news was full of foreboding, doom, depression, debate on quantitative easing and pictures of Gordon Brown, frowning like a constipated puppy next to headlines about deficit forecasts. But now we have all been saved (again) apparently – or have we? Could it just be that very few of us – economists included – really understand any of the words being used to describe the present ‘global economic crisis’? › Continue reading
There are a lot of commentators around at the moment, blaming a lot of the world’s ills on ‘globalisation’. Perhaps they are right, but does it end there?
A few weeks’ ago, someone called Paolo left a comment on this blog which brought a new language called Globish to my attention. It just goes to show: just because an editor’s paranoid doesn’t mean that there isn’t a conspiracy to stop us all from understanding the words.
But then take a closer look at the Globish site. Globish turns out to be one man’s vision of the plainest English possible. › Continue reading
Of course I never trusted them after the window incident, but that is just a personal thing, and I hope I’m big enough not to let my personal experiences affect my judgement irrationally.
It’s just that I can’t square it. Either they were wrong, in which case they shouldn’t be teachers. Or they lied, in which case they shouldn’t be entrusted with the welfare of the little children.
There was the stuff about splitting infinitives and their irrational hatred for the word ‘got’. But then they had to tie us in knots with their insistence that writing is boring if you use the same word twice in a sentence.
“Think of a different word to make it more interesting.”
That’s what they said. Of course I never believed them (although I don’t like to boast). Why do people give teachers so much credit for knowing things?
Successive captains of the Starship Enterprise continue to split their infinitives. Surely that’s enough to make people question the wisdom of those who told us not to?
But no, people insist on looking for a different word to “make the sentence more interesting”. And the worst culprits are journalists – sports journalists, and especially in broadcast.
If only they would read this blog and believe me when I say:
“There is no shame in repeating the name of a football team. Why must you call them ‘the visitors’ or worst still, ‘the tourists’?”
They are not tourists, they are paid professionals and they have come to play football not to see the sights. And they are not visiting, not for long. As soon as the match is over they get back on the bus and go home.
Sports come on the radio during the news. They wait until I am running towards the cooker, busy with a pan of over-boiling milk. Or I might be watching television, and just as I step away to make a cup of tea the sports correspondent starts gushing about visitors and tourists in that over excited way they have.
I suspect they have joined the conspirators, the ones who laugh at editors everywhere. I can’t listen any more. I have turned off the radio, unplugged the television.
I sit alone in the dark wondering about the UN. Dare I look for news online? I need to know whether the conspiracy has reached the highest level of international governance. I know they are holding climate talks, so here it is…
The future of our planet is riddled with abbreviations and acronyms.
I have been reading more about the property developer’s plans to build near my house. I found the details from “within the Application Quick Search box” on my local council’s website.
I have trawled through the documents that the council invited me to comment on. I have looked at all the plans, the mock-ups, studied the transport statements and ‘proposed elevations’.
The developers say they are going to protect the local bats. They have issued what they call a ‘Sustainability Statement’. It uses a lot of initial caps, for example “Proposed Development” and “Planning Application”. I don’t think the developers employ any subeditors. And even though I think this is an important issue, I suspect my local council won’t agree.
So I’m trying to ignore the misuse of capital letters. It’s not easy. I don’t think anyone understands unless they’ve spent days, weeks and years, weeding these sorts of things out and correcting them. These people don’t know the pain they cause. It’s like throwing a ball for a dog and then choking it on its lead when it runs to fetch.
Or may they do. May be they’re laughing.
But I’m determined to ignore all that, because I want to read the ‘Sustainability Statement’. I want to know how ‘sustainable’ the development is going to be, so I read on. It’s an interesting statement, with lots of background information on policy. It turns out that:
“The Rio Earth Summit saw the culmination of increasing global environmental and sustainability concern in the development of a number of multilateral outputs.”
I read the rest of the page on policy – international, European, national and local. I understand the other bits, the rest of the page is clear. It’s only the paragraph about international policy that is unnerving.
Could it be that those others, the conspirators, have infiltrated the very highest circles of international cooperation?
I have to grip the table as implications of this wash over me. This is not just about laughing at editorial staff. This is about something much, much bigger. How typical of me not to see the bigger picture before now, but then of course I woudn’t, would I? I’m the sort of person who checks spelling. No wonder I didn’t see it before now.
But if I’m right about this… if those others – the conspirators – infiltrated the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, what other international organisations have they got their evil talons into? How many other languages are they mucking up?