If you visit this site regularly, you know I despair over the decline of the English language. The public servants we hire to do our bidding pay a lot of lip service to education, but invariably that means mathematics, science, and technology. Those things are indeed important, but I have two observations.
First, not everyone is born with an inherent capacity to excel in one of those fields. I, for one, was not born with an inherent capacity to excel in… Oh, hell. I can’t even grasp the fundamentals of any of those fields. To paraphrase Somerville and Ross, I subscribe to Irish math, where two-plus-two may equal three or five or nothing whatsoever. Science tends to smell bad. And I have learned when I flip the switch the light will come on, usually, so how much more technology do I need?
Second, it makes no difference how brilliant you may be at math or science or technology, or how earth shattering your discoveries: if you can’t communicate them effectively and accurately, you might just as well have spent the time on the sofa watching reality TV. And the very schools that specialize in teaching communication, all those journalism schools that are supposed to attract the brightest and the best, are failing miserably. Case in point: the coverage of the recent conventions.
Did you watch the conventions? If you didn’t, you have my sympathy because you missed some high theater in both parties. It is well known that a politician cannot move his lips without spouting lies faster than water comes out of the Trevi Fountain, and that’s fine. They know they lie, you know they lie, everybody knows they lie, so nobody believes anything a politician says. But it’s the description of those lies, the words used to describe them by the brightest and best of the mainstream press, that bothers me.
A gaffe is either a social blunder or an instance of clumsy stupidity. When Joe Biden tells a senator who is confined to a wheelchair to stand up and wave to the audience, that’s a gaffe.
Misspeak, a verb, means to speak or pronounce incorrectly, or to fail to convey one’s intended meaning with one’s words. When Mitt Romney, speaking of America, says he wants to “…make sure this company deals with its challenges…” he misspoke.
To “twist the facts” or “twist the truth” means to change a fact, by omission or inference, so that it is no longer entirely true. When (fill in the name of any speaker in either party) says (fill in any speech or any portion of any speech by any speaker in either party), that’s twisting the facts.
But why does the press insist on using these euphemisms when they are clearly inappropriate and inaccurate? When Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Florida congresswoman and Democratic National Committee chair, denies making a specific statement and accuses a conservative newspaper of “misquoting” her, when the reporter in question has the recording of the statement, that is not a gaffe. It is, however, mind-bogglingly dumb. When she goes on television and accuses Republicans who support voter ID laws of wanting to “…literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws…” and then appears on television a day later and denies making that statement, she hasn’t misspoken. On the other hand, she has demonstrated monumental stupidity. And when she deliberately misquotes the Los Angeles Times on Romney’s stance regarding abortion, that’s not just twisting the facts. That’s moronic.
There are other fine old English words for all of those things: lies; mendacity; falsehood; untruth; prevarication; whopper (informal); gross, flagrant, shameless, barefaced bullshit (informal).
See what I mean? I never heard or read any of those words in the convention coverage of either party. English is dying.
‘Nani o-kureru, Buckaroo?’
(Hollywood-movie Japanese, grossly translated as ‘What Gives, Buckaroo?’)
While facetiousness about your own science and math skills is mildly confusing (I doubt if anyone buys that level of self-deprecation from someone like yourself), your point about effective communication skills is much appreciated.
Reading, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic come before ‘stem’ fields for everybody .
But, when, to elaborate the point, you picked on someone who may be feisty by nature and/or is not really that important (except perhaps in a headcount or to state constituents), it is somewhat baffling. Bloopers may be occurring as people are stretched for time and effort and ability in public speaking. Who cares about all the stupid little stuff that gets said in these days of goofy-but-rabid media and idiotic figureheads? What is important is to be able to steer through the clutter and to form an opinion from any coherence (or the lack of it) in arguments (backed by facts) and to recognize those who have some track record in figuring things out and getting things done. The rest seems largely like nit-picking over slops. Mainstream media criticism is often like this- Bush Jr was given a hard time because he called himself ‘the decider’. They seemed to forget the quote:
” The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer- often indeed to the decider himself……There will always be the darker and tangled stretches in the decision-making process- mysterious even to those who may be most intimately involved.”
That was JFK using ‘the decider’ which is perfectly acceptable English and does not detract from the insight being imparted.
Possibly the most important question to ask yourself about a Presidential candidate, in a post 2008 world, would be: will he be able to pull the US (and the world) away from slumping into another Great Depression/Lost Years/ Long Recession, and at what cost (not just monetary but moral and environmental)?
Did you hear Eastwood’s speech? All romance aside I was ready for Romney after Eastwood, as he spoke about performance which, for Obama, is less than obvious and behind-the-scenes instead of in-your-face and whizz-bang like everybody expects. Very few people seem to grasp the complexity in the issues related to the economic downturn, but, for example, some are beginning to ask Ohioans how the recession is going for them.
Then, did you hear Clinton’s speech? The folly of picking Romney too quickly was clear after Clinton spoke eloquently and precisely about what is wrong and what can be fixed and why it is so so important not to play-up petty crap (he should know) when cooperation is needed to fight a difficult battle for a common goal.
I miss that sort of intelligence in US public servants (or others for that matter). I never did believe that dumbness was ever going to take center stage, but these days that seems to be the main problem with the US. Instead of taking the hard but, broadly beneficial road ahead, most folk are behaving like a bunch of self-serving, yahoos looking at quick fixes, when those are simply not going to work. Why does everybody forget 1929-1944 and the global horrors that occurred? There was no divine intervention then, why should there be any now? History has shown (ignoring the experts for the moment) that a very active stewardship of resources needs to take place and that the fixes are often counter-intuitive and difficult. The typical blow-hards on any party seem incapable of understanding the issues, let alone seem capable of acting on them, but, if the candidate for commander-in-chief misses ( or has missed) the lessons of history then he should not get the office, once or again. Of course ‘should’ has nothing to do with politics.
Anyhow, what do I know? I am just some slob spending nights writing this in lieu of doing other, more useful, stuff. Will stop procrastinating soon. Even S&S re-runs don’t always distract anymore: great hook, good development, convincing and well-delivered (mostly) dialogue, usually followed by a shitty or an amazingly goofy denouement to fit the allotted time- that’s a typical episode. Yet it’s a good drug, for a while, and even the jejune episodes are now a reminder of a better time.
RA
P.S. Quit acting the fuddy-duddy and wrap-up the next short story,already.
I could not agree more! English is butchered daily, particularly in the media. I chose not to watch either convention, and avoided as much press covereage regarding the conventions as I could…mostly to avoid getting riled up. embarrassed and depressed.
I am a teacher of mathematics (yup, one of them), and by no means an expert on English, yet I know enough to recognize grammatical mistakes made daily in the media. My particular pet peeve is the loss of the adverb. How many times does the traffic reporter caution people to “Drive slow” when the roads are slippery!!!
I will add to your depair just a bit more by pointing out the decline of handwriting as well. Just last week I had to review the formation of 5 vs. S and 6 vs. b to my algebra students. Technology is wonderful much of the time, but as a nation we are losing sometning of great value.
JJ
Learning any language is an art form. Like you said Mr. Parker if people are lacking skills in communication, grammar etc they can easily go to many educational places to upgrade! I also sometimes wonder if technology has a part to play in how people use the English language? When one is texting you get lol for example in the former years it used to be haha. With the new age of smartphones we find instead of typing you , the letter u is used. You are is chomped down to ur. When these folks walk in to an academic environment I have found that this way of communicating follows the students then follows them to wherever they go. We should as a society have a challenge like Jeporady on the English language.
Tena French Halifax, NS Canada
Re RA’s comment – new short story? You have a new short story? Whoopee.
I would really like to see/hear a journalist use the words ‘mendacity’ and/or ‘barefaced bullshit’ (informal). Elections are on the horizon here in Oz and considering our ‘journo’s’ are fairly informal, I believe they could use your terms and get away with it. Oh, I wish. That would be so funny.
Delphine
I’m happy that I found you as my English teacher
It’s sad what happens to the english language but the same “mystery” happens here in germany. TV shows have the worst linguistic use. It’s all more “blah” and nobody wants to confuse the viewer with “advanced” german. The same with english. A headline from the Star-Advertiser today: “2 women returning from work when killed on Hawaii island road”. No matter how often I re-read it, I can’t make up the real news behind it. Were they killed before work, after work, are they walking dead? …hmm I “iz” confused! 
Dang, J. P.; I’m glad you wasn’t ever my English teacher!….. And R A–I’m votin’ fer YOU!….. Personally, regarding politicians, I’d take HONESTY and positive RESULTS over proper English any day. But then, I’ve always been more of a function rather than conformation sort of dawg person…L.B.