Bush & Blair Mangling English

[silverhawk]

i read this article in the newspaper.

"The English language is being destroyed by a 'deadly virus of management speak' which has infected the mouths & minds of politicians like Tony Blair & George W. Bush", a leading UK jounalist said.
The British Prime Minister & his ally the US President are mangling the language , destroying its meaning by avoiding the use of verbs, twisting nouns into verbs, and endlessly repeating phrases until they become "zombified"
"It's deeply depressing," says John Humphreys, one of Britain's leading political journalists & author of a new book, 'Lost for Words' about the demise of language.
He also labels the US leader a "master of the language of political manipulation" and accuses him of sweeping aside nuances of notions like freedom, tryth and democracy and instead firing the words like 'DUM-DUM BULLETS'
Blair, too, is singled out as a king of language corruption.

[drakkie]

what is the problem??? everyone uses different words to express the same, and language always changes !!!if we were speaking the same dutch as 100 years ago, it would be very different and i probably would have trouble making myself understandable...Our politic leaders come from all over the country, and in every part of the country there is a different accent, some much worse as others. when you put someone that speaks " real"the hagues and someone with the rotterdams accent they wouldnt understand eachother even though its only 50 km apart of eachother!!!

My point is : language is being raped by many people, dont make such a problem about it !!!!!!!!

[Matra et Alpine]

The point he makes, drakkie, is that this is a deliberate manipultaion of the language to avoid all negative connotations of 'good' things and to ensure villification of all 'bad' things.

it's the desire for the 5-second sound bite.

In the end it leads to a worthless language which conveys no facts.

Blair had a "spin doctor" who managed to ensure all his speeches were vacuous and yet woudl get cheers and claps from his supporters and not provide any real information for his opponenets to be able to comment on or discuss.

it falls to politicians to be open and honest and that shou;d mean using SIMPLE language and not fabricating phrases to 'sound good' as they invariably leave the listener wondering WTF?

In the UK we are now seeing professional politicians coming to the fore.
They have little experience in doing REAL work and living in the REAL world and this type of language just makes them more 'elite' and above the ordinary person who loses interest in what's said. THEN we wonder why less people come out ot vote

[spi-ti-tout]

Hey I read the same article! It was in weekend. You beat me this time Silver...but next time i publish the next article . Btw, where do you live again?

[silverhawk]

spi-ti-tout, i live in the UAE. where do u live?

i didnt make this thread as Anti-Bush, Anti-Blair or Anti-America. i just found it funny that leaders of countries like US & UK are having problems in speaking their own native languages.

[Matra et Alpine]

i just found it funny that leaders of countries like US & UK are having problems in speaking their own native languages.

The point Humphreys is making and MOST weoudl agree in the Uk is that the government is abusing the language DELIBERATELY.
It's not a case of Blair having problems speaking it's the creation of new terms to avoid the embarrasment of having to own up to the truth in plain English.
I've a different opinion about Bush and English