- Shooting the Brees again… - 26th March 2025
- Firm foundations - 25th March 2025
- More wordplay! - 24th March 2025
During 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, words have been all-important, and this is underlined by a new book today which outlines how language is used by people of different generations.
When I started in journalism in 1983 there was no internet giving an online support mechanism.
Regularly you would hear reporters shouting out: “What’s another word for xxx?”, whereas now, of course, you can find suitable synonyms with just a few strikes of your keyboard, what you didn’t realise at the time, though, was how language changes all the time, and is NOT set in aspic.
This is emphasised for me by a book from ANOTHER journalist who has looked into it. Michael Erard notes how children are among the most adaptable, and it is clear that for industrialised societies early linguistic development is big business.
Unusual and varied early words are meant to be a sign of a gifted child who will reap the rewards of being brainy later on. Baby books encouraging parents to report on their children’s first words made their appearance in the late 19th century along with an increasingly professional, managerial approach to parenting—child-rearing as optimisation. Rich-world parents are thus keen to elicit speech from their children as early as they can.
Industrialisation has had a major impact at the other end of the scale too. Popular culture has conditioned loved ones to expect some final truth or profundity in the last utterance of the dying. But moments of sudden lucidity, with clear, meaningful and memorable last words, are very much the exception in those who die today (and offer reason to be sceptical of many of the famous last words collected in anthologies).
By far the most common process by which people die in the modern rich world is a slow breakdown of physical and mental faculties, ‘neurochemical commotion’ as it’s called, that gradually robs people of the ability to say anything at all.
Mind you, there seems to be a lot of ‘neurochemical commotion’ in a lot of the ‘business-speak’ we often hear today.
Look, for example, at an announcement from Rhuanedd Richards, (formerly Chief Executive of Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru [PC], but now the Director of BBC Cymru Wales [BBC CW]).
Their website states proudly: “As Director, Wales, Rhuanedd leads the BBC Wales Executive Teams”, and blandly “Having left the BBC in 2007 she worked as a special adviser to the Welsh Government, chief executive of Plaid Cymru and latterly as a policy adviser to the Presiding Officer of the Welsh Parliament”, but critics may wonder if this background gives a nationalist bent to her decisions governing what is the biggest broadcaster in Wales.
There could be criticism too over the fact that Ms Richards had thanked a man on social media for congratulating her on getting a job, despite the fact that he had been placed under police investigation, and the nationalist paper he went on to found, only lasted EIGHT months!
Bafflingly, she has declared: “We must make more impact and become more relevant to more people rather than super-serving the same people”. Let’s unpack this a bit, as far as we can.
It takes a little time, but I THINK the first part means that audiences should want to WATCH the BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW) television material, LISTEN to its radio output, and READ what it has to offer online.
Yet surely a broadcaster would want to do this anyway, so it shouldn’t need to be stated at all! Or am I just being thick?!
Perhaps we can find an answer by examining in a bit more detail (if you can bear it!) an announcement from the man in charge of football’s governing body in Wales, the Football Association of Wales (FAW), Noel Mooney, when he was giving details of a new ‘governance’ strategy.
He said: “The FAW is at the start of an exciting journey that will see us become a thought leader in world football”.
The phrase, though, is perplexing. What exactly does ‘thought leader’ mean?! !s it just thinking about it, but not actually doing it? No idea.
It is obvious, however, that Mr Mooney’s organisation NEEDS a governance strategy. It was formulated after we showed how the North Wales city of Wrexham had been at the centre of an astonishing row.
The FAW was founded in Wrexham in 1876, but an alarming post on Twitter/X from ‘Saroadh PR’ said that some fans of the football club there, “beat the absolute shit out of Tomy (sic) Robinson (former English Defence League [EDL] leader) far right fascists”, backing up the message with a picture of men in balaclavas holding guns aloft.
The tweet outlined a series of mundane actions, including waking up early and taking a train to Manchester, before the violence. It then proclaimed: “All in a days work for the Welsh lads” – 197 accounts retweeted the message and more than 1,200 accounts liked it.
However this trait of opaqueness is also evident in international affairs, so, again, you must interpret what is said.
Examine, for instance, announcements coming out of China now where the economy is in real trouble, and 2025 presents ENORMOUS challenges. You wouldn’t know it though from what is proclaimed by Xi Jinping or the official state media.
There are hints behind what is said, but you must read the runes. Mr Xi recently declared: “To do a good job of next year’s economic work, we must first firmly establish confidence in victory”.
At the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), delegates were under pressure to sound upbeat like their leader.
Chinese journalists, were to avoid any coverage that might suggest pessimism – there was no place for troublemakers like me!
You also have to see through coded language. The NPC glossed over politics, yet persistent turmoil at the top of the armed forces was probably on the minds of many of the nearly 3,000 delegates, about 280 of whom were military personnel.
In November Admiral Miao Hua, who ranked fifth in the armed forces’ high command, was placed under investigation for “serious violations of discipline” which is a frequent euphemism they use for corruption. Admiral Miao was believed to be close to Mr Xi, and by targeting him, Mr Xi may have been trying to show that no one enjoys protection from his war on graft.
Occasionally the media which, ultimately, Mr Xi runs, lets slip that troubles are brewing, but, once more, you must decipher what is said.
In December Xinhua, the Government’s main news agency, referred to a “complicated and challenging environment of increasing external pressure and growing internal difficulties”. There are difficulties, too, in working out what the truth is – and it is made worse if you don’t call A SPADE A SPADE!
‘Out of the mouths of babes…’, as Mr Everard DIDN’T say in his new book about language…
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when stories with real meaning were all-important) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in ANOTHER book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
‘Bye Bye I Love You’ by Michael Erard is published by MIT Press.
Tomorrow – why developers in Wales have welcomed images for a multi-million pound revamp of the country’s busiest railway station, with one saying the plans will be a huge boost for Cardiff and the region.
