Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

The deadly virus of management speak

The English language is being destroyed by a "deadly virus of management speak" which has "infected the mouths and minds of politicians like Tony Blair and George W. Bush", according to a "leading UK journalist". Reuters, by way of disguised PR for the journalist's book, observes that:

"British Prime Minister and his ally the U.S. 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."

The story also quotes the interviewee as rightly pointing out

"... nobody is prepared to stand up and say: 'what does that mean?' because the assumption is made that if you don't know what it means then there is something wrong with you."

There is a distinct defensive tone to the reportage however, (for instance writing that the author "picks on Bush"), and the opportunity to make the obvious comparison with Orwell's Newspeak is completely missed, in favour of a lightweight and somewhat coloured observation that "for [the Author] the more sinister development is that such language has taken root in political discourse".

Item posted by AutoEditor at 1:19 pm ::