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Banquo's Ghost
01-13-2007, 18:04
Robert Fisk, a personal hero of mine in journalism, has written a pointed piece about "political correctness" language and the corruption of language by politicians to deceive.

Good stuff. (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2149736.ece)

Robert Fisk: This jargon disease is choking language

In the military sex-speak of the Pentagon, Iraq would endure a 'spike' of violence

Published: 13 January 2007

I once received an invitation to lecture at "The University of Excellence". I forget where this particular academy was located - Jordan, I think - but I recall very clearly that the suggested subject of my talk was as incomprehensible to me as it would, no doubt, have been to any audience. Invitation rejected. Only this week I received another request, this time to join "ethics practitioners" to "share evidence-based practices on dealing with current ethical practices" around the world. What on earth does this mean? Why do people write like this?

The word "excellence", of course, has long ago been devalued by the corporate world - its favourite expression has long been "Quality and Excellence", invariably accompanied by a "mission statement", that claim to self-importance dreamed up by Robin Cook when foreign secretary - swiftly ditched when he decided to go on selling jets to Indonesia - and thereafter by every export company and amateur newspaper in the world.

There is something repulsive about this vocabulary, an aggressive language of superiority in which "key players" can "interact" with each other, can "impact" society, "outsource" their business - or "downsize" the number of their employees. They need "feedback" and "input". They think "outside the box" or "push the envelope". They have a "work space", not a desk. They need "personal space" - they need to be left alone - and sometimes they need "time and space", a commodity much in demand when marriages are failing.

These lies and obfuscations are infuriating. "Downsizing" employees means firing them; "outsourcing" means hiring someone else to do your dirty work. "Feedback" means "reaction", "input" means "advice". Thinking "outside the box" means, does it not, to be "imaginative"?

Being a "key player" is a form of self-aggrandisement - which is why I never agree to be a "key speaker", especially if this means participation in a "workshop". To me a workshop means what it says. When I was at school, the workshop was a carpentry shop wherein generations of teachers vainly tried to teach Fisk how to make a wooden chair or table that did not collapse the moment it was completed. But today, a "workshop" - though we mustn't say so - is a group of tiresome academics yakking in the secret language of anthropology or talking about "cultural sensitivity" or "core issues" or "tropes".

Presumably these are same folk who invented the UN's own humanitarian-speak. Of the latter, my favourite is the label awarded to any desperate refugee who is prepared (for a pittance) to persuade their fellow victims to abide by the UN's wishes - to abandon their tents and return to their dangerous, war-ravaged homes. These luckless advisers are referred to by the UN as "social animators".

It is a disease, this language, caught by one of our own New Labour ministers on the BBC last week when he talked about "environmental externalities". Presumably, this meant "the weather". Similarly, an architect I know warned his client of the effect of the "aggressive saline environment" on a house built near the sea. If this advice seems obscure, we might be "conflicted" about it - who, I ask myself, invented the false reflexive verb? - or, worse still, "stressed". In northern Iraq in 1991, I was once ordered by a humanitarian worker from the "International Rescue Committee" to leave the only room I could find in the wrecked town of Zakho because it had been booked for her fellow workers - who were very "stressed". Pour souls, I thought. They were stressed, "stressed out", trying - no doubt - to "come to terms" with their predicament, attempting to "cope".

This is the language of therapy, in which frauds, liars and cheats are always trying to escape. Thus President Clinton's spokesman claimed after his admission of his affair with Monica Lewinsky that he was "seeking closure". Like so many mendacious politicians, Clinton felt - as Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara will no doubt feel about his bloodbath in Iraq once he leaves No 10 - the need to "move on".

In the same way, our psycho-babble masters and mistresses - yes, there is a semantic problem there , too, isn't there? - announce after wars that it is a time for "healing", the same prescription doled out to families which are "dysfunctional", who live in a "dystopian" world. Yes, dystopian is a perfectly good word - it is the opposite of utopian - but like "perceive" and "perception" (words once much loved by Jonathan Dimbleby) - they have become fashionable because they appear enigmatic.

Some newly popular phrases, such as "tipping point" - used about Middle East conflicts when the bad guys are about to lose - or "big picture" - when moralists have to be reminded of the greater good - are merely fashionable. Others are simply odd. I always mixed up "bonding" with "bondage" and "quality time" with a popular assortment of toffees. I used to think that "increase" was a perfectly acceptable word until I discovered that in the military sex-speak of the Pentagon, Iraq would endure a "spike" of violence until a "surge" of extra troops arrived in Baghdad.

All this is different, of course, from the non-sexual "no-brainers" with which we now have to "cope" - "author" for "authoress", for example, "actor" for "actress" - or the fearful linguistic lengths we must go to in order to avoid offence to Londoners who speak Cockney: as well all know - though only those of us, of course, who come from the Home Counties - these people speak "Estuary" English. It's like those poor Americans in Detroit who, in fear and trepidation, avoided wishing me a happy Christmas. "Happy Holiday!" they chorused until I roared "Happy Christmas" back. In Beirut, by the way, we all wish each other "Happy Christmas" and "Happy Eid", whether our friends are Muslim or Christian. Is this really of "majorly importance", as an Irish television producer once asked a colleague of a news event?

I fear it is. For we are not using words any more. We are utilising them, speaking for effect rather than meaning, for escape. We are becoming - as The New Yorker now describes children who don't care if they watch films on the cinema screen or on their mobile phones - "platform agnostic". What, Polonius asked his lord, was he reading? "Words, words, words," Hamlet replied. If only...

macsen rufus
01-13-2007, 18:18
Thanks for sharing with the group, BG. I've in-trayed the content, and think it's a ball we can run with once we've got our ducks in a row :laugh4:

InsaneApache
01-13-2007, 18:28
Or we could shake the tree, run it up the flagpole and indulge in some blue sky thinking. :sweatdrop:

KukriKhan
01-13-2007, 18:53
In summary, when all is said and done, the bottom line, at the end of the day, are the results of our out of the box thinking.

Banquo's Ghost
01-13-2007, 19:08
:beadyeyes2:

I hate you all with a passion you can barely imagine.

~;p

InsaneApache
01-13-2007, 20:06
I sense a negative input from BG maybe we should enpower him to re-channel his negativity towards the end game.




EDIT:oops...a memory malfuction caused the operator to omit a selection of letters.

Big King Sanctaphrax
01-13-2007, 20:33
I think we need to brainstorm ways of improving our synergy.

BigTex
01-13-2007, 20:34
Wonderful article, but I often enjoy listening to people spew human excriment from their mouths. It makes them look like idiots. I believe there was a harvard study that came out just last year, stating people who used big vanaculars and loaded on PC lingo generally had a low-average to low IQ.

Alexander the Pretty Good
01-13-2007, 21:09
I've got Bingo! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword_bingo)

Blodrast
01-14-2007, 01:36
:beadyeyes2:

I hate you all with a passion you can barely imagine.

~;p

You mean you have developed unequivocal feelings of discomfort towards us of such intensity that we might find challenging to envision ?

PanzerJaeger
01-14-2007, 01:52
Robert Fisk, a personal hero of mine in journalism, has written a pointed piece about "political correctness" language and the corruption of language by politicians to deceive.

I fear the author missed a golden opportunity to highlight the worst cases - involving the way in which certain ethnicities are dealt with linguistically, of course - due to his own political correctness. :shame:

InsaneApache
01-14-2007, 02:44
Discombobulation. :bow:

KukriKhan
01-14-2007, 03:46
stupified ignominy

fer shur, dude.

AntiochusIII
01-14-2007, 03:57
He's right. I'm quite sick of people calling everything under The Sun "political correctness" then dis on them caus dat mek tehm vry kool 2 b anti-mainstream.

Quite frankly, convoluted language and governmental/corporate "uplifting jargon" had existed far longer than what our great journalist implies. They are bloody annoying, of course, but their existence does allow me to make fun of people all the time as well, so it's not all bad.

:balloon2:

I fear the author missed a golden opportunity to highlight the worst cases - involving the way in which certain ethnicities are dealt with linguistically, of course - due to his own political correctness.I regretfully inform you that your most interesting message of racial opinions has failed to escape my notice and that I consider it to be quite old.

To be frank, we've got the message. No need to repeat it high heaven like Navaros does with his brand of religious fundamentalism. I don't like people playing their particular role repeatedly like they're in a Naruto filler.

Pannonian
01-14-2007, 14:14
I fear the author missed a golden opportunity to highlight the worst cases - involving the way in which certain ethnicities are dealt with linguistically, of course - due to his own political correctness. :shame:
Would you rather have the old political correctness, where certain racial groups were also subject to certain modes of language and thinking? It's partly as a result of the 1933-45 German government that we've decided it's rather a good idea to question our preconceived notions of people. Frankly, I would rather take care over my language, than have a society that sees people as niggers, dirty Jews and devious Pakis. If you can't describe the world without using derogatory terms, perhaps you should widen your vocabulary.

Note to mods: the words are used for effect, to show my opposition to their use. If one blanks them out, the point will be lost.

Your usage is noted, with a jaundiced eye. I'm sure you understand. The words will be allowed for now, provided they are not repeated or used by others in a manner inconsistent with your usage. -Kukri

Duke of Gloucester
01-14-2007, 14:25
The truth about jargon is that all groups have their own group of in-words and they use them to show that they belong to the group. Often they start off as really expressive metaphors: imagine the impact of "thinking outside the box" the very first time it was used: before it was overused it was much more expressive and communicated far more than "be imaginative". Unfortunately the power of such phrases is seductive, they become overused, develop in to cliches: now they obscure meaning rather than communicate it. That is when they become jargon. You just have to be really careful to make sure you notice before you start using the now-meaningless terms.

Duke Malcolm
01-14-2007, 14:43
You should hear some of the codswallop we get from the Executive of the People's Republic and the City Council at school... It's all hard copies, and I shan't bother typing it...
Though the Glorious Executive of the People's Republic has a habit of replacing ancient departments and offices with silly new ones...

Husar
01-14-2007, 16:02
[...]caught by one of our own New Labour ministers on the BBC last week when he talked about "environmental externalities". Presumably, this meant "the weather".
:laugh4:

I think the author does have a point.

Mooks
01-14-2007, 23:36
Iv always disliked when people cover the truth in fancy words. If your going to do something, say what your going to do and do it. Anyone who sais "environmental externalities" is a real idiot.

Kralizec
01-15-2007, 00:14
Convoluted language can be annoying, especially of course when deliberately used to mask something. The author has a point, but he's exaggerating to such a point that it becomes whining.
"conflicted"? "stressed"?

PanzerJaeger
01-15-2007, 05:27
Yes. The author seems opposed to people using big words. :laugh4:

Some of his examples were rather weak in that they were easily understandable with a basic command of the english language.

yesdachi
01-15-2007, 22:05
All throughout recorded history we have communicated with more words than we really need to (the bible is a great example of old text with extra words), when it comes out of the mouth of a Shakespeare we love it but when it belches from a politician we hate it. We could probably cut the crap out of everything we write or say but it is not going to be taken as well as fluffy buzz talk.

Somebody Else
01-16-2007, 00:08
There is a difference between being flowery and over-using jargon. Use of metaphor or simile that evokes some kind of feeling, or better help the understanding of the various layers of meaning behind a phrase is one thing. Using contrived phrases to demonstrate an affiliation to some particular paradigm.

Marshal Murat
01-16-2007, 00:16
Ockham's razor

I'm just saying right now that Jihad is a word that has been turned inside out. While it can mean a religious war, it can be better translated as 'quest' rather than 'holy war'.