Language, please, Mr Premier
Why I’m, perhaps unreasonably, riled by a post on social media.*
Not so long ago, I asked how many former journalists and other communications and media people are being employed by the State Government and suggested it was too many.
Now, I’m wondering if the answer is “not enough”.
The sub-editor inside me is appalled by a social media post by our Premier, David Crisafulli. Not by the sentiment, which is fine, but by his choice of words.
My focus is on the first sentence:
Fence-sitting dictionaries may disagree, but there are no degrees of uniqueness.
Something is unique — that is, one of a kind — or it isn’t. Too often things are said to be unique when they are merely rare, unusual or uncommon, or fall somewhere else on the scale.
To call something “most unique” is a nonsense. To say, or write, “some of the most unique” is even worse, because you’re hedging your bets on that nonsense. It’s effectively saying, “I don’t know.”
This is important (to me, at least) because we risk losing unique words from our vocabulary by allowing them to be used as synonyms for other words that have their own meanings. This makes communication more difficult at a time when it’s already hard enough to be understood.
The State Government, which is responsible for education, should be leading the way on this.
Yes, this is the hill on which I will die. Metaphorically, of course.
P.S. On a related subject, the next time a journalist encounters the word “multiple” in a comment by a politician or police officer, would it kill them to ask that person to be more specific?
Hearing that “multiple people” were arrested tells me nothing. It could be three or 30 or 300 or 3,000 or any other number I could think of that’s more than one. Even if they can’t give an exact number, narrowing it down to something like “a few”, “about a dozen” or “nearly a hundred” would be far more instructive.
*If I’ve committed some sort of clanger in this post, I refer you to the phenomenon of Muphry’s Law. (That’s Muphry’s, not Murphy’s.)
Mister Brisbane is free to read, but if you appreciate what I’m doing here, and/or
at The Wrinkle and Radio Bert, you can buy me a coffee.
Do you celebrate Queensland Day? Should we make a bigger deal of it than we do?
If you want to feel heard, and you’re not already sick of elections, you can vote for your favourite Queensland things here. The deadline is June 4. Queensland Day is on June 6, but you already knew that.
Media matters
Nothing succeeds like insincerity. Or does it?
Insiders tell me that an emotional farewell on one Brisbane radio show recently belied a lot of behind-the-scenes tension and tears.
I also understand that staff on one radio program have a “game” where the presenter theatrically tosses aside paper scripts after reading them.
It’s probably seen as harmless fun — except that there are cameras in the studio feeding a live stream where it could look like they are being disrespectful to their advertisers’ copy. That’s not a good look in commercial media.
Disclosure: Brett Debritz used to work in radio and newspapers in this city.
Why, if Australia spends more per capita than most countries in the world on education, do we churn out people who are deficient in basic grammar, spelling and maths?
Someone has to point out when our standards drop.
though, unfortunately, less and less people seem to care anymore.
Let’s not celebrate Queensland Day… it will become something else that enraged activists can complain about.