Sir, – Oh God, here’s more of it; the infuriating, Orwellian misuse of the English language with words and phrases that say absolutely nothing in an attempt to confuse and distort. “Government Ministers are leaning towards . . . a ‘scoping’ exercise to investigate . . . allegations of misconduct and negligence by gardaí” (News Agenda, February 25th).
At least, your article does helpfully inform the reader that the term “scoping” means “preliminary” in this case. Perhaps officialdom might then clarify why the word “preliminary” didn’t suffice to describe their intentions? My initial thoughts were that the term sounded vaguely reminiscent of some procedure carried out under anesthetic via the nether regions of a patient! – Yours, etc,
JD MANGAN,
Stillorgan Road,
Stillorgan, Co Dublin.