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Ban the idiots, not the words
WORDS are everything. Words are all.
Words are knowledge and power, they're beauty and love, they're law and they're disorder, they're entertainment and education, they're the very foundations of society.
Words are the world. There is nothing so beautiful – not a Strokes song, nor a girl in a Strokes tee-shirt – as a well-constructed sentence.
There is nothing so destructive. Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will break your heart.
I like words. I like all words. Even words like coterminosity, cross-cutting and empowerment.
These have been banned by the Local Government Association in a bid to make public bodies more accessible. They're among 200 the LGA is encouraging councils to kick into touch.
It wants more plain English so people can understand what councils are talking about. You pay for the things, you should be able to tell what they're saying without needing an interpreter.
And these council cliches, they say, are murdering the English language by destroying its vitality.
Office staples such as "process driven", "thinking outside the box" and "going forward" are creating a convoluted and impenetrable language barrier between "customers" (us) and them with the "democratic mandate" (councillors and their officers)
So from now on councils have been told to phase out "good practice", get rid of "community engagement" and lose their "vision."
Although, in the case of Calderdale, you might argue that happened a long time ago. Ho-ho. See what I've done there?
Words, though?
I've known people who hate these expressions so much that hearing, for example, the word "facilitate" only makes them want to facilitate the cutting off of their own ears.
And yet I can't help but think such terms have been scapegoated. There's nothing wrong, surely, with a bit of "joined up" thinking or having "core principles".
The "best practice" is surely to be "cautious" when "welcoming" banned words. That's the "core message" of this here column.
Because banning words, really, is a bit like burning books.
And burning books is never a good idea. Not even if it's Jeremy Clarkson's latest work...well, maybe if it is Clarkson's latest work.
No, the problem here isn't the words. It's the people who use them. It's they that need burning. Banning, I mean.
David Brent-style middle managers who talk about "capacity building" and "distorting spending priorities" when what they really mean is they have nothing of any possible substance to say.
The LGA shouldn't be having to waste its time banning words. It should just use a few very clear ones of its own and direct them at councils everywhere: don't employ idiots who talk in cliches and incomprehensible language in the first place.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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