文章基本信息

标题：Mind your language
作者：Wordsworth, Dot
期刊名称：The Spectator
印刷版ISSN：0038-6952
出版年度：1999
卷号：Jul 31, 1999
出版社：The Spectator (1828) Ltd.

Mind your language

Wordsworth, Dot

TONY BLAIR (who seems to me to be losing his looks as well as his hair, though I cannot speak of his scarred back) followed the zeitgeist in using that popular term kick in (`Mind your language', 3 July) on Question Time last week. He might have been referring to fox-hunting or to the so-called peace process; I forget. Then, of course, peace process itself is a prime example of petitio principii, and there was quite a bit of ignoratio elenchi floating about with respect to the unstated timetable for 'decommissioning'.

It was with a pang of disappointment that I found a goody, the angelic Rebecca Nicolson (who has fled the diabolical advance of Janet StreetPorter and her pandaemonic auxiliaries at the Independent on Sunday), using last week one of my pet hates: defining moment. But then, my pet hates are multiplying to such an extent that they will probably soon be rounded up by the RSPCA, leaving me to be prosecuted for keeping them crowded and ungroomed in insanitary conditions. There may not be a purely linguistic objection to defining moment; perhaps it is just a cliche. A suspicious number of moments seem to be defining something or other these days.

And I am sorry to revert to the fascinating Janet Street-Porter, but she does invite comment. I agree with her that much of the criticism of her is motivated by misogyny. I know the feeling. All the more disappointing to find the criticisms justified.

I have cut out her apologia in the Independent on Sunday and stuck it on the wall above the sink as a warning to others. `Eclecticism will be the keynote' ... `the Orkneys fishing fleet' . .'I want our features to be accessible' . . . 'I live . . . in a world whose products I consume voraciously, whether they're digital hardware or organic apple juice' (which makes her sound like a cross between a computer virus and a woolly aphid). . . 'I am interested simply in bringing a more all-embracing tone to this newspaper'. How allembracing can you get? The woman does not seem to know what words are for. I blush for my sex.

Now, can anyone help? The bright young theatre producer J.B. Hartman asked me the other night what the word is for music that the characters on stage cannot hear. I do not know. Is there one?

Dot Wordsworth