thedanglingmodifier.co.uk

I was delighted to hear David Cameron describe the queen as “half-baked” this week, in a reference to her speech at the state opening of Parliament. Who would have ever expected a Tory leader to insult the monarchy like that? Then I realised his “half-baked” was a dangling modifier, that it might refer to the speech. So, I wondered, what will happen to editors and the cause of plain English if this man becomes prime minister?

When Thatcher’s lot were in they – and the papers that supported them – were constantly banging on about ‘healthy competition’ and ‘loony lefties’. Soon the whole world seemed to believe competition was healthy and anyone with even slightly leftwing views should defect or be sectioned. I remember a colleague telling me in 1988 to move to Russia if I didn’t want to pay my poll tax.

Then of course we had to endure Tony Blair’s bright white smile for a decade as he prattled on about ‘hard working families’ – as if all families were hard working, as if the children of hardworking parents are more deserving than the children of so-called ‘spongers’.

‘Spin’ of course, sounds so much less sinister than ‘propaganda’ but really it’s the same thing. Only ‘spin’ is a bit sporty, just putting a little spin on a ball, giving it some momentum that’s all – not something you’d naturally associate with Hitler’s Germany or the former Soviet Union – which was, of course, a place run by ‘loony lefties’.

So, what can editors expect if David Cameron becomes prime minister? Well apparently he’s a big fan of ‘nudge’ – and not the nudge-nudge wink-wink variety, or at least as far as I know. (Best not to dwell on that, I think.)

No, this is ‘libertarian paternalism’ – making us pee at flies in urinals. A bit ‘nanny state’ perhaps, potentially sinister, but not really propaganda – unless, I suppose, you mean it in the sense of ‘propagating the faith’.

Of course the problem for editorial staff is that ‘nudge’ brings with it a whole set of new jargon words. You might think that means more work for us turning government and business speak into plain English – but that’s because you’ve forgotten about all the cuts, I mean ‘efficiencies’.

Start getting used to hearing about ‘choice architects’ and the ‘status quo bias’ (no, not fans of the aging headbangers). One thing in nudge’s favour is that it makes a distinction between economists (‘econs’) and humans.

And of course, ‘nudge’ has acronyms too. RECAP stands for Record, Evaluate and Compare Alternative Prices. This apparently means that companies should be forced to publish information so that consumers can make meaningful comparisons of products.

More work for marketing people and copywriters I should think as companies will want to give this information to have a positive spin.