How Good is Your Grammar? by John Sutherland

Author:John Sutherland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780722580
Publisher: Short Books

READ MY LIPS: POL-TALK

Politicians – whose job, as representatives of the people, requires them to speak in many tongues (without apostolic-pentecostal aid from above) – go demotic with the clumsiness, more often than not, of the Johnsonian dog walking on two legs.

When new-dealer Franklin D. Roosevelt told the American people, in one of his radio broadcasts, ‘I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues’, it wasn’t because Mr President couldn’t have come up with something more – let’s say – ‘presidential’. He wanted to be homely, to get down with the masses crowding round their wirelesses. ‘I may well not be the cleverest of men, but I am utterly confident that I can identify the best aides to have around me in my high office’ would have missed the mark. It sure would.

Churchill, wisely, kept strictly to the language of his ruling class when speechifying. It worked. The country, in WW2, wanted a leader, not a ‘mate’ who was ‘one of them’.

What in rhetoric is called ‘bathos’ – sinking, linguistically – has election-losing risks. It is a generally accepted historical fact that Neil Kinnock blew his chances when, at the pseudo-presidential eve-of-election rally at Sheffield, in 1992, he let loose with the repeated bellow ‘We’re awright!! We’re awright!! We’re awright!!’ A softly spoken ‘Aren’t things going well for us, comrades? Now let’s have a rousing chorus of “The Internationale”, to remind us what we stand for’ might have been luckier for the Labour Party’s ‘nearly man’ (interestingly ungrammatical phrase, but none fits better). Rant at your peril, wannabe PM.

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‘Awright’ is unspeakable. But Kingsley Amis has a problem with ‘alright’. In The King’s English he writes (or, as he would say, ‘inscribes’) fumingly, ‘I still feel that to inscribe “alright” is gross, crass, coarse and to be avoided, and I now say so.’ Are you with him?

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