Newspeak can make a joke of the Queen’s English

Press, 31 August 1985, Page 21

Newspeak can make a joke of the Queen’s English

By

JANE EYRE

NZPA-AAP

Have you seen those high net worth individuals melting plastic? Probably goes to “pours” a lot just to give the competition the O-O. If you don’t understand a word of that you are not alone. *

This is jargon, newspeak, and such is its place in the land that invented the Queen’s English that a dictionary has just been published for devotees.

To put newcomers out of their misery, the translation is: Have you ever seen highincome earners or the rich spending it via their credit cards?

Probably goes to a lot of parties to give the competition the once over.

If that sounds reasonably logical just remember that different professional groups invent their own buzz-words designed to exclude the outsider — sort of in-house passwords. The new dictionary, by

Johnathan Green and published by Routledge and Kegan Paul, lets the cat out of the bag by putting the language into professional categories. Next time you hear an air hostess complaining about having to give special treatment to the VFL’s on board she won’t be talking about Melbourne footballers.

They are visiting friends and relations who are the families or friends of cabin crew or employees of the airline.

It might set up a twitch factor — a decrease in aircrew efficiency because of increasing age or pressure of work.

Sociologists could have a dictionary all to themselves. For example, if they refer to someone as being “challenged” it generally means physically handicapped. Can you imagine Sydney advertising the affectional preference minorities’ mardi gras instead of a gay one?

People would think some-

one had suffered of a character disorder which translates into gone mad.

Teachers are not immune either, with references to age cohorts, sin bins and verbiage. For that read children of the same age, classes for uncontrollable children, and any written matter.

Politics of course is a natural arena for jargon. It coined the high net worth individual phrase. In the House of Commons you will find plods (police on duty), headbangers (members of the far Left of the Labour Party), Tutti Frutti Communism (the Italian Communist Party), lifeboat ethics (decisions made for expediency rather than humanitarian reasons), and cosmopolitans (Jews). If the Prime Minister talks about fine-tuning a speech it means anything potentially contentious or politically redundant will be cut out.

Show business types get a little ritzier with their jar-

They complain about the crix (critics), go to pours (parties), believe in the 0-0 (once over), and hate appearing on greed shows (quiz programmes).

When next humbled before the bank manager or stockbroker try talking about hot money, creative accounting, and window people.

That refers to money lured from abroad where investors may be threatened by political instability, inventive accounting which falls just short of breaking the tax laws, and people who never get promoted and spend their days gazing out of the office window.

Before you know it, there will be a follow-up dictionary to bovrilise the whole language.

Bovrilising, for those not in the advertising game, means to omit all inessential matter. And that’s anecdotal (the truth).