{"id":57,"date":"2015-02-24T11:53:57","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T11:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/election\/?p=57"},"modified":"2015-05-12T11:46:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T10:46:01","slug":"words-wordswords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/comment\/2015\/02\/24\/words-wordswords\/","title":{"rendered":"Words\u2026 words\u2026words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there any phrase more annoying than \u201chard- working families\u201d?\u00a0 This seems to have entered the political phrasebook and is now trotted out by just about every party on just about every occasion.\u00a0 Some say it was first used in the 1990s although Liverpool University\u2019s Dr Stuart Wilks Heeg<\/a> has pointed out a use in Hansard in the 1920s. <\/a>(Just above the start of column 515)<\/p>\n

When George Orwell wrote about Politics and the English Language<\/a> back in the 1940s he argued that for clear thinking you needed clear language.\u00a0 He wanted political writing to be more direct and straight forward.<\/p>\n

One reason I dislike the phrase \u201chard-working families\u201d is that it combines vagueness with a sort of \u201cdog whistle message\u201d intended to push certain buttons.\u00a0 If you think about it, how on earth can a family actually be hard-working (unless of course the children are up the chimney and granny is on piece work)?<\/p>\n

I suspect this coming election will be full of words and phrases that either don\u2019t mean a lot or mean a huge amount if you can pick up the signals.<\/p>\n

So to join \u201chard-working families\u201d\u00a0 here are the other two in my starter list of three words or phrases that should go in the banned box.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to start a debate on this\u201d.\u00a0 A common political phrase in interviews and discussions which roughly translates as \u201cdon\u2019t really know what I think about this one\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirm but fair immigration\u201d.\u00a0 What on earth does that mean?\u00a0 If the opposite doesn\u2019t work (in this case flabby and unfair immigration) then the phrase carries no concrete meaning.<\/p>\n

Writing speeches is not easy.\u00a0 Taking part in interviews and debates can be tricky.\u00a0 So you can see why scribes and speakers fall back on their regular phrases.<\/p>\n

But I wonder if, this time, we can have a little less obfuscation and a little more of Orwell\u2019s clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there any phrase more annoying than \u201chard- working families\u201d?\u00a0 This seems to have entered the political phrasebook and is now trotted out by just about every party on just about every occasion.\u00a0 Some say it was first used in the 1990s although Liverpool University\u2019s Dr Stuart Wilks Heeg has pointed out a use in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1269,"featured_media":30,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32286],"tags":[32278,32290,32294,32340,32291],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-election-2015","tag-general-election","tag-general-election-2015","tag-hard-working-families","tag-politics","tag-vote"],"yoast_head":"\nWords\u2026 words\u2026words - Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/comment\/2015\/02\/24\/words-wordswords\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Words\u2026 words\u2026words - 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