Public language: impenetrable sludge

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Gary Chow | No Comments » | Trackback URL

I’ve been reading Don Watson’s insightful and very funny book on the use of language in Australia, Death Sentence, the Decay of Public Language.

Watson has spoken on behalf of many of us who are driven to distraction by the buzzwords, catch phrases, clichés and corporatespeak that constantly assault our eyes and ears.

He denounces the style of writing and speaking typically found in corporate mission statements, government reports, press releases and annual shareholder meetings as ‘depleted and impenetrable sludge,’ confusing to outsiders and even those who use it.

Words that particularly annoy him include ‘enhancement’, ‘commitment’, ‘value-added’, ‘accountability and ‘transparent’ — empty code words which are ‘learned, practised, expected [and] demanded’ throughout the networks of the managerial classes in Australian society.’

Watson doesn’t have a high opinion of the way Australians use the language and he reserves his sharpest barbs at our politicians. In general we ‘make do with language, as we make do with low rainfall and thin soil and bits of wire’, but former prime minister, Bob Hawke ‘murdered speech and politically it cost him nothing.’

While Watson approaches his criticism with levity, his main point is deadly serious, as this excerpt illustrates:

‘If we deface the War Memorial or rampage through St Paul’s with a hammer, we will be locked up as criminals or lunatics…it is right that the culture should be respected. Yet every day we vandalise the language which is the foundation, the frame and joinery of the culture, if not its greatest glory.

I’d recommend this book to anyone but especially those working in the corporate world. Perhaps some of its points will be received and in time the ‘creeping plague’ of corporatespeak can be be turned back.