Recently added to my mini-library is Strictly Speaking by Edwin Newman, which I bought last night at the Bookshop for P60.
Based on its introduction---the only part I managed to read so far---that a presidential spokesman opted to say he must be given enough time to make an "evaluation and judgment in terms of a response" than simply say "he'll think about it," is a commentary on the state of language. And the state of language is a commentary on the state of society.
"Language," Edwin Newman says, "is in decline." Does it mean society is in decline, too?
Newman says we have become a society when people say "at this point in time" instead of the more concise "now" or "today." Ours is a society where everything done "before" is done "prior to," and everything done "after" is done "subsequent to."
Newman's message, then as now, remains valid. It also hit close to home. "As with fiscal and food challenges," said GMA in her 2008 SONA, "the global energy crunch demands better and more focused resource mobilization, conservation, and management." In the same speech, GMA said, "More advanced corruption practices require a commensurate advances in legislative responses."
I feel that there are far better ways of saying what GMA said. I just can't do it myself. Still, the fact remains. GMA delivered her message without bothering to get her point across. George Orwell in Politics and the English Language launched a scathing remark on how politics corrupts language---and vice versa. He said: "Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
GMA's speech, and indeed most speeches of today's politicians, are no different from the kind of politico-babble Orwell and the many language mavens like Edwin Newman condemned long time ago.
I hope (Newman advised against using "hopefully"), politicians would pause for a moment and ask themselves, "Do I make my point simple and clear?" Or better yet, get a copy of Edwin Newman's Strictly Speaking or Sir Jose Carillo's books.
