We are, mercifully, close to the end of this election’s campaigning phase. I am tired of it all, but then I was tired of it before it started.
I don’t like the intemperate language written and spoken during elections and referendums. I think people lose control of what they are saying in their strained, wild-eyed efforts to convince us that they are unquestionably right, their opinion must be the only one that counts, and that the opposition view is stupidly and entirely wrong.
People lose the ability to conduct rational discussion. They become more extreme, more unpleasant versions of themselves. Too many abandon any semblance of toleration for those with different opinions.
Please, could we all just calm down?
This election, there has been a phrase that has particularly grated. When asked a difficult question (or sometimes an easy question) politicians of all stripes trot out the words: “Let me be perfectly clear. . .” or “My party has been perfectly clear on this . . .” They then give an answer that isn’t even remotely “clear”.
There is nothing new in this, of course. Politicians have been refusing to properly answer questions for centuries.
Sometimes they don’t mean to use the language badly. They make mistakes, or at least I hope they are mistakes. I’ve heard the Scottish vote referred to as “a political prawn”, which sounds fishy. I’ve also heard politicians describe themselves as “scrapegoats”, which sounds itchy.
I’m weary of the shouting. I have a low opinion of people who talk over others. I like considered answers given to sensible questions.
So I’m suggesting a new way for political campaigns to be conducted. Politicians should be sat down at a desk with a pencil and paper. No devices giving online help, not even a dictionary or thesaurus. All they’d have is their brains.
They could then write down their policies and explain their reasoning in plain English.
The public would examine their pieces of paper, taking into account sentence construction, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and even the neatness of handwriting. In fact, I’d want to see whether they held their pencil correctly between thumb and forefinger, with the shaft pointing up their wrist.
We would judge their words, not their ability to shout loudest.
It would be less noisy, less divisive and, I believe, an accurate indicator of whether they are the sort of person we can trust to run the country.
Word of the week
Chiliad (noun)
A group of a thousand things. EG: “I could list a chiliad of reasons why I dislike election campaigns.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
