thedanglingmodifier.co.uk

They are going to build near my house. When I say ‘they’ of course, I don’t necessarily mean the conspirators, the ones who laugh at editorial staff.

No, this is a whole other ‘they’ – a property developer. So much for the recession. I keep hearing on the radio how badly property developers and the building trade have been hit. Well not round my gaff, they haven’t.

The local council sent me a letter inviting me to comment. It used initial capitals with wild abandon, telling me to:

“Enter the Application Number within the Application Quick Search box and select ‘Search’.”

For a moment I thought I was reading German, but then I realised that I recognised the words and none of them were ‘Achtung’ ‘Nein’ or ‘Delphine’ – the only German words I know.

It was the number of capitals that confused me.

And then the way they said ‘within’ like that… Did they expect me to get inside the Application Quick Search box and enter the application number? I decided to find out and quickly typed in the web address.

As I waited for the webpage to appear, I read more of the letter.

“From within the application details you will also be given a quick way of making representations on the application and sending them directly to us.”

Within the application details? Perhaps I would be able to get into the Quick Search box after all. And if so, no wonder it had initial caps. It was a place name, the name of a wonderland in cyberspace. I assumed that this was technology moving on without me – the technological imperative, I thought – until I looked at the page and realised my mistake. It was just an ordinary online form.

I have been out in cyberspace again, trying to find meanings for some of the expressions I get stuck on.

I wasn’t going to; I was going to give up.  Then an old friend emailed me about my blog. She’s an editor too and she confessed that she doesn’t understand the words either. So I’m not the only one, I thought.

The only way to be happy, she advised me, is to “just check the spelling”. May be she’s right, I thought. She seems to be happy. But then I read on – she confessed more. She has worked for E&Y and said:

“I hope you’re not trying to edit something I originally wrote for them!”

I imagined her laughing as she said it, tossing her mane of dark hair. So, I thought. At what price happiness? Have those others got her under some spell, in their power? Has she gone over to the side of conspirators who are secretly laughing at editorial staff everywhere? The ones who invent expressions like ‘improvement levers’ and ‘technology imperative’?

I was at a low ebb. Perhaps I am all alone in this world of corporate speak. And if they’ve got my friend, how long before they get me?

I have to crack their code, understand their ways, know my enemy.

So I started by googling ‘technology imperative’. Many books have been written about this but it would take me some time to read them all.

Then I discovered this webpage, and I understood the words. It was written by some bloke at Aberystwyth University – an academic, but it’s still reasonably clear. It turns out a ‘technology imperative’ is actually a ‘technological imperative’, and it’s about technological developments being inevitable.

I was very excited. So it does mean something after all.