Watch your Language (Lost for Words - John Humphrys)

Member Name: duncantorr

Product:	Lost for Words - John Humphrys
Date:	18/04/07 (415 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A telling critique of the manipulation of language for political ends

Disadvantages: Not quite as convincing about the "mangling" of language

John Humphrys is one of a number of writers and media luminaries who have lately turned their attention to modern trends in the use of the English language. Like most of his confrères, he finds much to deplore.

Humphrys' book 'Lost for Words' is aptly subtitled 'The Mangling and Manipulating of the English language'. In 'mangling' and 'manipulating' it encompasses two distinct themes. The first is how clumsy or convoluted usage can rob words of their meaning and impede clear thought. The second is how cynically contrived usage can mislead people and manipulate their thinking.

On the first of these themes he is interesting and often amusing, but he says little that is new, and I am not sure that he always gives a fair hearing to the counter-arguments. On the second he is both knowledgeable and powerfully persuasive. Since this seems to me to be the more important of his two themes, I believe that this is what makes his book a valuable one.

But let us, as he does, deal with the less significant of his two themes first.


* The Mangling of English *

To his credit, Humphrys is not a complete pedant. In his view, rules exist as a means to the end of clarity, not for their own sake. For example, he has no objection to beginning sentences with conjunctions or ending them with prepositions, a point he illustrates with the following anecdote, which I cannot resist repeating:

"On his first day at Harvard a gauche young man from Mississippi approached a couple of cocky New England Socialites. 'Hey, y'all, where's the library at?' One replied haughtily, 'At Harvard, we prefer not to end a sentence with a preposition.' The young redneck thought for a moment, and said, 'Okay. Where's the library at, asshole?'

Humphrys is also tolerent of the ever-changing colloquialisms of teenage slang, accepting that young people have always developed their own rule-bending ways of communicating among themselves and probably always will. In this, he recognises that informal habits of speech can convey clear, and even subtly nuanced, meanings, so long as both the speaker and listener share the same frame of reference.

So what does he object to? He objects to the unnecessary use of jargon, and he objects to what he sees as ugly, awkward sentence construction. Both, he argues, act to obscure rather than to clarify meaning, a point that he illustrates with numerous examples.

As one reads the examples - seemingly impenetrable officialese, plonkingly bathetic redundancies and deafening grammatical howlers - it is easy to succumb to superior mirth and nod in agreement with his case. Perhaps it is too easy. We need to pause and ask ourselves whether we may simply be reassuring ourselves by asserting traditional prescription over the healthy mutation whereby language evolves to cope with the needs of an evolving world. Language drifts, as it always has, but that does not necessarily mean that it degenerates.

The test is clarity, but clarity is in the eyes of the reader or the ears of the listener. The use of jargon, for example, does not always serve to obfuscate. Some specialised meanings require specialised language for their expression, and if the uninitiated don't understand the language it may be because they don't understand the meanings. Like informal slang, jargon can convey clear meaning so long as both the speaker and listener share the same frame of reference.

The argument for identifiable and consistent rules rests ultimately on the notion that language needs to be universal - understood in the same way by everyone. In practice, this isn't always the case.

Similarly, meaning can be lost for reasons other than departure from grammatical rules. A grammatically incorrect but simple sentence may be understood more easily, and even more accurately, than one that is grammatically correct but cumbersome.

In fairness to Humphrys I think he understands all this. He is not, as I say, a complete pedant. But where he is no better than I have been here is in identifying an objective definition of what it is - if it isn't strict application of rules and it isn't the use or non-use of jargon - that makes for clarity, or in devising an objective means for measuring it. In the absence of such a definition and such a means, the case that "correct" use of language is essential to clarity of thought rests on mere assertion.

I happen to share many of Humphrys' prejudices, and bristle just as much as he does at some of the ugly and opaque (to us) examples that he cites. But I think we will need to be a little more persuasive than Humphrys is in this book if we are to convince doubters that they are more than just prejudices. He makes a readable and entertaining case, but I'm not sure he has made it conclusively.


* The Manipulation of English *

Humphrys is, I think, on much firmer ground when he moves on to discuss the intentional misuse of words to obscure meaning or to deceive outright. This comes as no surprise, since he has spent much of his professional life face-to-face with the lies, quasi-lies and evasions of politicians. He is, of course, one of Britain's best-known broadcasters on political matters, and a battle-hardened interviewer of senior politicians.

He is not only concerned with misuse of language in the political arena, but also in the commercial. Indeed, his view seems to be that politicians have adopted the verbal techniques of advertising and PR. Historically, I am not so sure about this. Politicians have been bull-shitting people for at least as long as marketing men. Which preceded the other doesn't seem very important; probably the two have refined their techniques in parallel. But it does seem to me that the political use is by far the more sinister. After all, if I'm conned into buying a more expensive brand of soap powder I'm only a few pence worse off; if I'm conned into voting for the wrong party I could be subjecting myself and all my fellow-citizens to tyranny.

"PR language uses words to create effect and not to convey meaning," says Humphrys, and cites many examples, most of them from the vocabulary of politics rather than PR. In his view, debate in the sense of an exchange of reasoned arguments has almost disappeared. In its place we have a bidding war between competing sets of sound-bites chosen for their connotations. Generally politicians seek to deploy words with positive or comforting connotations (e.g. "progress", "investment" or "choice"), though occasionally they will use words with negative connotations (e.g. "terror") if their aim is to frighten people into compliance. The common denominator is that the words are chosen to elicit a reaction at an emotional rather than a rational level.

Where in the past politicians felt it incumbent on them to at least go through the motions of presenting an argument, they now barely pretend to be doing anything more than selling a message. Messages, unlike arguments, do not need to stand up to logical scrutiny. They can depend for their effect on false premises, false dichotomies, and persuasion by association, but they will be no less effective for all that if they are sufficiently skillfully contrived. Hence the retinues of spin-doctors, market researchers and media specialists.

All this has been facilitated by the ever-growing dominance of the broadcast media, especially television, as the main source of news and the main political forum, something of which Humphrys as a broadcaster is acutely aware. Television thrives on fleeting impressions; someone who looks and sounds good can get away with much more on screen, or even on air, than they can in print. Newspapers can be - and often are - tendentious in their reporting, but a reader has more opportunity for reflection and analysis than a viewer or listener.

In these circumstances, of course, it becomes more than ever important that broadcast interviewers and commenters like Humphrys subject politicians to searching cross-examination on our behalf, by asking them the questions they don't want to answer and by exposing their evasions when they fail to answer them. I have always admired the way Humphrys - polite but persistent and penetrating - handles these encounters. He is, incidentally, hated by many politicians and their spin-doctors (reportedly, Alastair Campbell frequently attempted to have him ousted from the BBC). This must mean he is doing a good job.

He does a good job in this book as well, at least where this crucial aspect of his subject is concerned.


* Style and structure *

"Language," says Humphrys, "betrays how we see the world." His language is accessible, incisive and wry. He argues persuasively and illustrates his arguments with well-chosen quotations and anecdotes. This is a readily readable and engaging book. It is not easy to put down.

Whilst awarding Humphrys high marks for style, though, I am less impressed with his book's discursive structure. It is not always clear which chapters are meant to be dealing with which aspects of his subject. The various strands of his thesis are intertwined, so that one occasionally loses track of the distinction between them. For example, he does not even clearly separate the two main themes - mangling and manipulation - from each other. That is left to the reader.

Possibly, the conflation of the two is intentional. Perhaps one is meant to infer that the mangling of the language has undermined people's critical faculties, making it easier for them to be manipulated. It would be an intriguing argument, but since it is not explicitly pursued in the book there is little point in pursuing it here, or in arguing against it.

Overall, the reader is left with having had an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, with some valuable insights into the political misuse of language very pertinent to our times, but without a sense of total conviction in everything that Humphrys has to say. There is a "grumpy old man/world going to the dogs" quality to some of it that, whilst it might appeal to other grumpy old men like me, will not appeal to everyone.

For all that, it is a book that I would recommend to anyone interested either in English usage or in contemporary politics. If you're interested in both, it's required reading.


* Bread and butter stuff *

'Lost for Words' by John Humphrys is published in the UK by Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-83658-X, recommended cover price £14.99 (hardback) and £7.99 (paperback), though cheaper on the internet or if you shop around. I'm delighted to say I picked up my hardback for 50p in a charity shop.




© First published under the name torr on Ciao UK, February 9th 2007

Summary: Readable reflections on the misuse of English, with valuable political insights