About 60 years ago George Orwell wrote a fine essay called “Politics and the English language” which was an attempt to explain why politicians’ speeches were so boring.
Nothing much has changed since, except that now almost everybody seems to have caught the politicians’ nasty habits
Orwell gave six rules for better writing, which included:
It you can cut a word out, do so.
Never use a long word if a short one will do.
Avoid cliché and jargon.
One of my clients is a compulsive jargon-meister. I keep reminding him of these simple rules – I even run a regular seminar for him on the subject – but it doesn’t help since he doesn’t attend. Today he ruined my appetite for breakfast by sending me a piece that described someone as a “delivery vehicle”.
Then my old friend Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, bon viveur and intelligence expert, compounded the problem by sending me something so bad it is almost farcical. It is part of a message from the Henry Jackson society. Almost every word is a cliché.
It reads:
Choppy waters ahead for Brown
Gordon Brown’s beleaguered government recently greenlit a new £4bn aircraft carrier project. However this should not detract from the fact that the British military remains chronically underfunded.
The nastiest thing in that, perhaps, is “greenlit” for “approved”. The man who wrote it should be taken out and shot for vile, unnatural cruelty to the English language.
“The man who wrote it should be taken out and shot for vile, unnatural cruelty to the English language.”
Now, now, Mr. Bird. Don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel. {smirk}
– John Thomas
“One of my clients is a compulsive jargon-meister. I keep reminding him of these simple rules – I even run a regular seminar for him on the subject – but it doesn’t help since he doesn’t attend”
Why don’t you do the seminar through your website and call it an “interactive webinar” and tell him it’s a great way to “interface with like-minded people in the interactive online space”. He’ll go for that by the sound of it.
Then if he makes any comments just say to him, “interesting interjection, let’s take this offline at my next seminar” and hey presto, you’ve got him to attend!
Thanks for round-tabling this one, Drayton. Going forward, and vectoring projected anti-jargon bias from assorted demograph sub-strata into the equation, I’d postulate that this one could run and run. It certainly has the legs. What’s obviously required is a blue skies approach, and if I might tentatively suggest a think-tank assemblage of opinion formers, heat seekers and, well, consultants then it’s possible to speculate that we might, in the fullness of time, actually get this baby off the ground.
Have Blackberry. Will travel.
Tell me where you need me, Sir.
Looking forward to redaing your review, Lyz! I can’t from work, alas (I appreciate the NSFW warnings). I’ve loved this film for a long time, and consider my copy of the 2-disc edition to be one of the prizes of my little collection.I remember first watching the cut version with friends when I was about 14. Afterwards, we all were doing the typical teen reaction: That’s a scary movie? Where’s the blood?! But the ending stayed with me for years afterwards. The first shot of the Wicker Man, and Howie’s reaction to the sight, is still one of my benchmark moments of gut-wrenching, freakish horror