ADMIRALTY ENGLISH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19764, 15 April 1926, Page 10

ADMIRALTY ENGLISH.

DESCRIBING VARIOUS RATINGS. "An announcement on the first page of the London Gazette discloses the meticulous care of great minds in Whitehall to see that the King’s English is used with that precision which is the essence of perfect description,’’ writes the London correspondent of the Birmingham Post. “Four years ago an Order-in-Conncil authorised payments and allowances to ‘telegraphist ratings’ employed In the Naw as ‘aerial gunners and assistant observers.* The Lords of the Admiralty have discovered with this title “incompletely describes the duties of these ratings, sine* their duties as assistants to the naval observer are confined to sending and receiving wireless apparatus, and in no other respect are they qualified to replace or understudy the naval observer.’ “This discovery made, the great mind# in Whitehall entered on a perold of labour. They invented a new title for the ‘telegraphist ratings.’ The Lords of tha Admiralty petitioned the King to assent to the alteration, and the King, sitting la Council, having taken the memorial into consideration, was pleased by and with the advice of his Privy Council’ to approve the altera! ion. “In future the telegraphists are to be called not ‘aerial gunners and assistant observers,’ but ‘telegraphist aerial gunners.* It takes a whole page of the official Gazette to announce the birth of this ridiculous mouse. The man of simple language will be left wondering in what degree the new title more completely describes than the old the duties of men whose activities are so specifically restricted to telegraphy.”