Cheating = doing God’s work

‘The Bank of English announces its latest interest rate decision at 12.00pm, and no one expects it to go up.’

Ben Brogan, Daily Telegraph

This simple proof-reader’s error had my mind reaching out in every direction this morning. For the nature of the English linguistic malaise has taken a poor last place in our thoughts in recent times…..after bankers, accountants, MPs, IMF bosses, footballers, CNN hosts, eurocrats, lawyers, police, civil servants, Murdochs, and all the other obstacles that lie between us and a more simple life.

English is under assault from all sides: yobs, the comprehensively undereducated, corporates, John Birt, Americans, the politically correct, black youth, spin doctors and the news media. Nobody has been able as yet to diagnose the problem, because while at times it shows clear signs of being in the tertiary stage of deflation, at others it is hyperinflating like a South American country run by Mervyn King – or possibly Melvyn Bragg.

There was a time when one said, “The corollary to that is”, but this has now been shortened to one word, “Yebutseefingizzroit”. The colloquial but acceptable “Have you gone mad or something?” has in turn become “Wharrayoulike?” Perhaps most spectacular of contemporary abbreviations, however, is the one used to answer a statement like, “You drove this car the wrong way along a pavement while inebriated, thus killing two dogs and grievously wounding a vicar”. Formerly, one said, “I do not know what came over me your honour, and I must merely fall upon the mercy of the Court”. Today the correct response is, “So?”

Corporate bollocks has been a standing joke for such a long time, you’d think it would  need a good lie down by now. But no, on the contrary, it is bursting with health. A chum of mine was asked by his ad agency the other day, “Should we circle for a bit on this one?” He genuinely hadn’t a clue what the bloke was on about: despite years of having his diary windowed, and admen drilling down into the gum-protection space of his market, the client wondered if they were going to play some kind of embarrassing bonding game.

The sum aggregation of a set of spaces is a quantum, and – as James Murdoch pointed out to everyone’s great tedium last month –  a quantum is a place you probably looked at before, but should now go back and examine again to see if you missed anything. We used to call this stalling in my day, or occasionally, woffling. At school, it was expressed as, “Please sir, I left my homework on the bus”. As Murdoch the Younger is sort of American, I might as well point out some of their more wonderful euphemisms: like ‘misspoke’ (lied), ‘let go’ (fired), and – of an economy – ‘slowly turning the corner’ (flatlining), or – of a policy – ‘directional correction’ (U-turn).

Few groups in society have added more idiotic, confusing and mealy-mouthed expressions to the language than those arriving via the cultural enrichment of West Indian street-jive and pc drivel. “Yarnarwatameeninnit?” has replaced the somewhat more lyrical, “Don’t you think so, hmm?” while of course nobody is who they were under the parliamo Harrieto system that pertains today: you might be a Chair, or a Traveller, a sex-worker or a customer negotiator, but you are no longer allowed to be Superman. A large part of our problem as a species might just possibly be contained in that awful reality.

In the media, you may be a person close to events or a trusted source near to the action, or even a sources close to Ed Miliband (ie, Ed Miliband). On the footie field, by contrast, you could be gutted, more than ‘appy, or speaking in this latterly invented tense, the present imperfect past: “Wull, the ball’s come over an’ eez ‘eaded it in an’ the crowd’s gone mad”. You might also, if you’re a referee, have had a diabolical game and be entirely out of order. And if employed in Wapping, you are very probably mortified by what you’ve only now discovered, and at pains to point out that your horror at this painful discovery knows no bounds. Without doubt, you will long beforehand have instituted a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to hacking mobile phones.

Look back over the preceding paragraphs, and wonder. Apart from the fact that your grandparents would understand roughly 5% of it, just think what those erosions and additions represent: slovenliness, disrespect, jargon, euphemism, mendacity, fantasy, ignorance, and hypocrisy.

I am pleased that there is a Society for Plain English. Such is not fogeyism, but rather a wish for us to return to accuracy, honesty, discipline and care in our modes of communication. Always going forward on a critical path towards the low-hanging fruit, naturally.