They should be committed
Aug. 2nd, 2009 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksAlice Arnold, previously better known as a Radio Four newsreader, has turned up in "Listen Against", a marvellous self-feeding Radio Four programme that hints at the influence of Chris Langham in its tempo of phrasing. Highly recommended for the way in which it just debunks all of the shit that we have to listen to from professional bullshitters the rest of the week.
The latest "full-of-bollocks" catchphrase is "we are committed". I spotted a couple of crap uses of this phrase in today's Sunday Times, and, with the marvellous help of search engines online, found an average of one a week in the Times Online for the past couple of months.
So, let's hear it for the "should be committed":
The Prison Service: "*We are committed to working towards a zero tolerance approach to prison violence.*
The MOD: *We are committed through the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme to paying appropriate compensation to wounded service personnel*.
Alan Campbell, managing partner at Scottish law firm Dundas & Wilson: *we are committed to retaining talent wherever possible,”
Magna (Canadian company looking to take over Vauxhall) *We are committed to the UK and to the Vauxhall brand*
Times Leader: (An honourable exception here, in that the phrase is actually used correctly)
*We are committed to the war in Afghanistan and should supply enough troops to get the job done*.
Spokeswoman for Scottish government on inconsistencies of sentences between courts: *we are committed to delivering transparent and more consistent sentencing.*
Statement from Heads of State of the BRIC countries at G20: *“*We are committed to advance the reform of international financial institutions so as to reflect changes in the world economy* (first class bullshittism there, I feel....)
From Helen Rumbelow, TV reviewer -- once again, a correct use of the phrase Perhaps people move from journalism to PR because they don't know how the phrase should be used? *We pretend we do not like imperialism, materialism, or sexism, but we obviously do. We are committed to doomed struggles on all three.*
And, finally, in a top 10 that seems to feature three Scots, a spokesman from the Scottish Rugby Union:
"*We are committed to operating a sport that is open and accessible to all,* said a spokesman. *Race, creed, colour, gender and sexual orientation have no bearing.*."
A trawl through the news section of Google (although, worryingly, Google seems to take much longer to load these past few days? Has McAfee done something? Is Microsoft up to some tricks?
Anyhoo, a look through Google News throws up 10 uses worldwide in the past three hours. Nine of these are PR bollocks use, although only one is a press release.
++++++++++++
I've been six-tabling for two days in an effort to make August a good month for throughput. If I have no holiday planned and nothing else on of any significance, I might as well get the work ethic in place. Too small a sample to say how things are going, but I'll update at the end of the month in terms of hands played, effect on mental and physical health, burn-out danger, and so on.
+++++++++++
Spotify threw up The Divine Comedy, one of those "bands" that has long been on the edge of my consciousness but which I have never genuinely followed. There are echoes of Magnetic Fields here, and also of Scott Walker. This could be a massive Amazon.co.uk binge.
____________
The latest "full-of-bollocks" catchphrase is "we are committed". I spotted a couple of crap uses of this phrase in today's Sunday Times, and, with the marvellous help of search engines online, found an average of one a week in the Times Online for the past couple of months.
So, let's hear it for the "should be committed":
The Prison Service: "*We are committed to working towards a zero tolerance approach to prison violence.*
The MOD: *We are committed through the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme to paying appropriate compensation to wounded service personnel*.
Alan Campbell, managing partner at Scottish law firm Dundas & Wilson: *we are committed to retaining talent wherever possible,”
Magna (Canadian company looking to take over Vauxhall) *We are committed to the UK and to the Vauxhall brand*
Times Leader: (An honourable exception here, in that the phrase is actually used correctly)
*We are committed to the war in Afghanistan and should supply enough troops to get the job done*.
Spokeswoman for Scottish government on inconsistencies of sentences between courts: *we are committed to delivering transparent and more consistent sentencing.*
Statement from Heads of State of the BRIC countries at G20: *“*We are committed to advance the reform of international financial institutions so as to reflect changes in the world economy* (first class bullshittism there, I feel....)
From Helen Rumbelow, TV reviewer -- once again, a correct use of the phrase Perhaps people move from journalism to PR because they don't know how the phrase should be used? *We pretend we do not like imperialism, materialism, or sexism, but we obviously do. We are committed to doomed struggles on all three.*
And, finally, in a top 10 that seems to feature three Scots, a spokesman from the Scottish Rugby Union:
"*We are committed to operating a sport that is open and accessible to all,* said a spokesman. *Race, creed, colour, gender and sexual orientation have no bearing.*."
A trawl through the news section of Google (although, worryingly, Google seems to take much longer to load these past few days? Has McAfee done something? Is Microsoft up to some tricks?
Anyhoo, a look through Google News throws up 10 uses worldwide in the past three hours. Nine of these are PR bollocks use, although only one is a press release.
++++++++++++
I've been six-tabling for two days in an effort to make August a good month for throughput. If I have no holiday planned and nothing else on of any significance, I might as well get the work ethic in place. Too small a sample to say how things are going, but I'll update at the end of the month in terms of hands played, effect on mental and physical health, burn-out danger, and so on.
+++++++++++
Spotify threw up The Divine Comedy, one of those "bands" that has long been on the edge of my consciousness but which I have never genuinely followed. There are echoes of Magnetic Fields here, and also of Scott Walker. This could be a massive Amazon.co.uk binge.
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 04:48 pm (UTC)Don't you mean Pirate Bay?
Get it while you can.
Rabbie has a dream
Date: 2009-08-02 05:10 pm (UTC)Obviously, drop-kicking would present something of a problem.
On the other hand, the standards for national registration in sports these days (Serbo-Swedish, Brazilio-Croatian, not to mention the questionable recruitment policies of the All Blacks) is so pitiful that it should be fairly easy to grand-person them in.
And, let's face it, they'd be a hell of a lot more entertaining to watch than the current bunch of native minor public schoolboy twats.
Re: Rabbie has a dream
Date: 2009-08-02 05:34 pm (UTC)You're on the right track here, but as usual you wimp out where it gets interesting. The thing is to question, not the initial weasel-word cliche (and yes, I know this particular cliche clearly doesn't mean what they intend you to understand that it means ... oftentimes, that is the point of a cliche). The thing is to examine the follow up. To take your examples:
Prison Service: WACT "working towards a zero tolerance policy..."
Translation:"Right now, and for the foreseeable future, we're pretty relaxed about a 100% tolerance policy..."
Scottish Law: WACT "delivering transparent and more consistent sentencing."
Translation:"Nobody agrees on what 'transparent' means, and you can't prove a statistical anomaly because, by statistical definition, anomalies happen. Did you see that LTCM thing? We can keep this going for as long as we like...."
G20: WACT "advance weriuyasdf;jklh...." Sorry, I nodded off.
Translation: "Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I can't hear you, la la la la...."
La Rumbelow: "WACT doomed struggles..."
Translation: I have no idea what the hell the bint is talking about.
From this we see that the real problem is the follow-up verb. In proper usage, adjectives or adjectival phrases are intended as intensifiers. In WACT usage, they are used as emulsifiers -- "I know you'd like me to make a specific commitment on this, but, well, y'know..."
In the case of the Scottish reporter, I still don't know what she means. Apparently we are all obsessed with imperialism (whatever that means) and materialism (whatever that means) and sexism (whatever that means).
Are we? Did we all get a 2:2 from Heriot-Watt University?
But she's right. We are all doomed.
The Divine Comedy
Date: 2009-08-02 05:14 pm (UTC)Re: The Divine Comedy
Date: 2009-08-02 08:12 pm (UTC)Mike W
Re: The Divine Comedy
Date: 2009-08-03 08:20 pm (UTC)Keith S
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 05:16 pm (UTC)Rabbie has a dram
Date: 2009-08-02 06:15 pm (UTC)Re: Rabbie has a dram
Date: 2009-08-02 08:14 pm (UTC)Re: Rabbie has a dram
Date: 2009-08-03 03:38 pm (UTC)Why do I get the sudden image of Tom Jones in the background singing "Delilah?"