My lord Acton had the right of it, writes Wesley Boyd. Power tends to corrupt, he said memorably, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now the poor word that he used correctly and so eloquently, particularly in its adverbial form, is being corrupted on our airwaves every hour of the day. From Cabinet Minister to cabinet-maker, the reply to almost every question asked is "absolutely". Have people who appear on radio and television forgotten that the simplest and most telling affirmative response to a question is "Yes"?
Tyis is only one example of the careless and slovenly manner of speaking that can be heard daily on our broadcasting stations. The slipshod mouth muddle that we have to endure is far removed from the objective laid down by Chris Woodhead, the controversial former Chief Inspector of Schools in England. The expectation for the spoken English curriculum in primary schools, he wrote, was "that children are taught to speak clearly, fluently and confidently to different people." Irish broadcasters, please copy.
Language of broadcasting
When I worked many years ago in the BBC radio newsroom in London, every journalist, senior and junior, had to dictate his report to a typist. The purpose of this expensive practice was not to create full employment among the typing classes but to achieve a high standard of spoken English to maintain the tradition of excellence laid down by the stern and demanding Lord Reith, the BBC's first director-general. The language of radio broadcasting, he had ordained, was spoken, not written. By dictating the report the journalist, it was hoped, would avoid the construction of awkward and inelegant sentences.
Later, in the RTÉ newsroom during the worst of the troubles in the North, I heard a reporter came on the line from Derry to recount yet another shooting incident, not to a typist but directly to a recording machine: "A sniper shot a Scottish soldier in the shoulder..." Not surprisingly, he stumbled several times over his chosen words and had to start over again. . .and again. As the precious seconds ticked away towards air time he was sharply advised by the irate editor on duty in the Dublin studio to change his introduction to: "A British soldier has been shot and wounded by a sniper in Derry." Lapses can occur in the rush to get the latest news on to a bulletin, but they are inexcusable when they are simply the result of a lackadaisical approach by professional broadcasters.
Excited eye-witness
I am not suggesting that everyone who goes into a studio, or, more frequently these days, lifts a mobile phone to contribute to a programme should be obliged to have a certificate from a school of elocution, but surely professional broadcasters and regular contributors should make the effort to elucidate with eloquence. What is acceptable from an inarticulate and excited eye-witness in the street describing an accident should not be tolerated from a seasoned performer.
For a start, their bosses should prohibit them from using the ubiquitous "yeh know" (or even worse "yeh know, like") either as an attempt to be matey with the audience or as a semi-subconscious speech mannerism.
It is not necessary to keep minute-to-minute recordings of broadcasts to demonstrate that listening to a good deal of radio output can be an irritant instead of a pleasure. As they say at the best award presentations, it would be invidious (and in this belawyered land probably libellous) to single out individual stations and broadcasters but listening randomly over a relatively short period recently I could have filled a book.
In the course of a three-minute interview on a major news programme, an experienced specialist correspondent used no fewer than 13 yeh-knows plus a sprinkling of kindas and I-means. On another station a panelist, who is in and out of studios more often than the weatherman, admonished a contributor on the line from a London studio: "Yeh know, let's be real."
Language abusers
Surprisingly, authors who go on programmes to plug their books are among the greatest language abusers; one would think that a person who has the talent to write a few hundred pages for public sale would be reasonably well acquainted with the niceties of language. An actress, whose livelihood presumably depends on her command of speech, in a long interview about her literary offering, could scarcely utter three words in a row without the insertion of yeh-know. Indeed she even managed to achieve a triple fault with three uninterrupted yeh-knows.
I heard a former diplomat plugging his book on two stations. Diplomacy requires an exact and subtle use of language but our man in the bookshop had a couple of yeh-knows in almost every sentence and managed a couple of double faults on both programmes. The list is tedious and, unfortunately, endless.
And can someone, anyone, answer a question without starting with the superfluous "Well"? Yeh know what I mean, like. Absolutely!