Jargon-busters pass sentence on local council 'gobbledegook'

Two articles appearing on successive days in The Telegraph last week reported on a new guide published by the Local Government Association which seeks to ban over 200 jargon words from use by local councils. The LGA says that words and phrases such as 'coterminous' and 'predictors of beaconicity' are 'meaningless management speak' that hinder communication with the public.

"Congratulations Dave! I don't think I've read a more

beautifully evasive and subtly misleading public statement

in all my years in government!"

The first of these articles lists some of the words and phrases that have now been banned, while in the second article Ed West looks at some examples of local council job advertisements that use such jargon and asks 'What does any of this mean?' A good question, Mr West. Apart from just being downright baffling, though, Ed West argues that 'jargon makes it easier to disguise one's actions with euphemisms for inaction, bureaucracy or waste'. This is surely a serious point, and one which draws on some of the issues that we have considered when studying Language and Representation, and which we are about to come back to in the A2 Language Debates synoptic unit.

Of course, Ed West is not the first person to make this kind of observation about the language of politicians. One of the most famous diatribes on such linguistic 'trickery' is George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language', written in 1946. In this seminal publication, Orwell argues:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the
countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants
to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

Orwell goes on to condemn a range of jargon and euphemistic terms used by the politicians of the day and, while he was writing more than 60 years ago, much of the language to which he refers would be very much at home in the lexicon of a 21st century politician. You can read the complete essay here. You'll find this a very interesting read... and a very useful one if the topic of Language and Ideology should happen to come up in this year's synoptic paper!

With thanks to Jeremy for bringing the first Telegraph article to my attention.

The joy of txt

It seems that there's no shortage of newspaper articles about the language of text messaging these days, and frequently the focus is on the impact that 'text speak' is having on the literacy skills of young people. Signifcantly more rare, however, are such articles that actually consider the influence of 'text speak' from a positive angle. In this article that featured in yesterday's Daily Mail (not normally known for its liberal approach to this sort of debate), the writer discusses a study which claims that text messaging can actually help young people's literacy skills.

One of the psychologists conducting the study claims that 'children's use of textisms is not only positively associated with word reading ability, but may be contributing to reading development.' Addressing the issue that seems to be at the heart of fears over the corrupting influence of text messaging, Dr Beverley Plester goes on to say that 'children text in a type - or register - of language which is supposed to keep the grown up out. As a general rule they do not use text language in their schoolwork'. So the language of texting is as much about in-group identity as it is about economy and speed. Interestingly, the study observes that girls use 'textisms' more than boys do, and it might be interesting to ask why. Does this suggest that girls are conforming to the stereotype that females generally use langauge for social purposes, while for males langauge is generally referential? Or does it mean that girls are more adept at mastering a new linguistic code such as 'text speak'?

I'm interested to hear what you think about the views expressed in this article. If you're an A2 student this is exactly the kind of text that you might see on your ENA6 paper in the summer... but let us know what you think even if you're not an A2 student.

Crotchdogs, mousemobs and piersonalities

If you got a chance to have a look at Monday's Guardian while drying off and getting warm in between bouts of snowball fighting, sledging and snowman building (or snow whatever building - Nathan knows what I mean), then you will have come across Charlie Brooker's column, in which he lists a number of entries from his New Media Dictionary. These are all spoof word formations, but they're worth looking at because (a) they demonstrate a number of the word formation processes that those of you on the A2 course need to know by heart for Language Change, and (b) some of them are very funny. Take, for example:

chudge (chudj) n. An underqualified judge on an underwhelming TV talent contest.

craptitude test (krap-ti-chewed tessed) n. A televised talent contest with a panel of chudges (qv).

zerotoleriddance (zero-toller-riddantz) n. The moment the public mood finally and irrevocably turns against a hitherto-just-about-tolerable minor celebrity; eg, "We put Danielle Lloyd on the cover and sales nosedived; looks like she's hit zerotoleriddance."

We've looked at this sort of thing many times before, so if you've got five minutes and you want to have a go at coming up with your own spoof neologisms I'd love to see them. Post them as a comment below (together with your analysis of the word formation process) and I might even find it in my heart to give a prize for the best one (and the most accurate analysis). Here's my effort:

bincentive (bin-sent-iv) n. A motivational 'prize' offered by one such as an English Language teacher, which, while purporting to be of high value (e.g. a Mars Bar, a Cafe Nero voucher) is, in fact, worth nothing (e.g. said teacher's 'applause' and 'respect'). Blend of 'bin' and 'incentive'.

Your turn...

Apostrophes about to meet it's maker.

It seems that the death sentence has finally been passed on that most problematic of punctuation marks, the apostrophe - in Birmingham, at least. This week Birmingham City Council announced that they would be abolishing the apostrophe - the proper use of which has been the source of much confusion since its first appearance in our langauge 300 years ago - from all newly-produced street signs. You can read more about the reasons for this decision here.

This move has inevitably sparked something of a debate. There are those who welcome the termination of the apostrophe's 'rights of residency', arguing that it was never really necessary anyway. Perhaps the strongest supporters of this side of the argument are those behind the Kill the Apostrophe website. On the other hand, more prescriptivist views are expressed by the likes of the Apostrophe Protection Society, whose campaign does exactly what it says on the tin. There's a very handy summary of both sides of the argument here.

So what do you think? Is the apostrophe worth saving or is it better off dead and buried?

Beryl bashes Scouse brogue

Author Beryl Bainbridge has once again courted controversy by criticising the accent and dialect of Liverpool, as reported in today's Guardian. Bainbridge got herself into a spot of bother over this one about ten years ago when she claimed that her success as a novelist is partly down to the fact that she took elocution lessons to help her get rid of her Scouse accent. Yes, that's right, she's criticising a variety that she herself once used!!

But it's not just Beryl Bainbridge who's been attacking the Liverpudlian variety this week. This article in The Sun considers once again (for this is something that seems to occupy newspaper writers on a regular basis) those linguistic varieties considered to be the 'best' and 'worst' in Britain, and Liverpudlian doesn't fare well. As also reported here, it is frequently the case that people feel the need to change their accent and/or dialect when in a high-stakes situation such as a job interview.

Geordie accent and dialect

This post relates to the assignment that I have given to my A2 English Language class today. You will find some useful texts for the assignment here, here, here, here, here and here.

Verdict on slang collector: 'helio proctosis'

Yesterday's edition of the London Student newspaper ran an article on the use of slang among students and other young people. The article features an interview with Tony Thorne, a linguist working at the English Language Centre at King's College, home to the 'Archive of Slang and New Language'.

The article lists some interesting slang terms, and if you're keen to follow this up then why not pay a visit to the Archive of Slang and New Language website, where there are literally hundreds of slang terms listed, together with their origins and uses. The article also makes some interesting references to attitudes towards slang usage, which are relevant to the kinds of debates that we're going to be having in ENA5 (A2) very soon and then later on this year in ENA6.