Monday, October 25, 2010

By Right They Should be Taken Out and Hung For the Cold-Blooded Murder of the English Tongue

Writes Johnny Grimond in The Spectator:
Most of the violence inflicted on English is not the work of greengrocers who misplace their apostrophes or teenagers who split their infinitives, but of bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and academics. Too many such people are either self-important and flatulent or lacking in self-confidence and anxious therefore to make their utterances seem weightier than they are. Both types are prone to using euphemisms, jargon, acronyms, five long words when two short would do, politically correct flannel, worn-out phrases, trendy neologisms and clichés, clichés, clichés. All these get in the way of clarity of expression and something called the truth.

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