Learning Enlgish for reading and all ESL by English in ny.com, www.Englishinny.com Thomas H. Middleton (Saturday Review, 4-19-75) deplores the “abominable” language spoken and written by the “majority of successful Americans – those in positions of responsibility and power.” I would like to play devil’s advocate as I interpret the “Light Refractions” of this language behavior. Mr. Middleton unwittingly casts us all as “gazing rustics” yearning that speakers of abominable English translate what they say into “good English.” The “gazing rustics” were those country folk amazed by the “words of learned length and thundering sound” spoken by the schoolmaster in Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village.” The implication is that the schoolmaster spoke an abominable English comparable to that used by today’s “doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats, and businessmen.” However, many intelligent men of letters in the 18th century took jobs as schoolmasters in order to subsist. The “words of learned length and thundering sound” might very well have been spoken by Samuel Johnson. Granted, good English is appropriate to the audience for which it is intended; it is also, however, natural and honest to the speaker. Too often, I fear, we lay all the responsibility for communication on the speaker and none on the listener. Language is effective not only when it communicates an idea clearly and concisely; it is also effective when it obscures a message, for then we – as listenters – should be piqued to ask questions about thinking and point-of-view. If a speaker uses language we think inappropriate – abominable – it serves little purpose to attack the language; for the speaker, thinking his language is natural and honest, will see little reason for changing it. His likely reaction is to be defensive and criticize his attacker, which gets us nowhere. Ever since Orwell coined “newspeak,” critics have had a field day with the language behavior of politicians. Edwin Newman, for example says that “The nature of diplomatic language is to conceal rather than reveal.” That is an obvious truth; the delicate process of diplomacy requires at times that nothing be said. Leaders of totalitarian states have no problem here; they say nothing to their people; there is no criticism, no premature interpretation, no conclusion made. The process of democracy, however, encourages criticism. The journalist must “get the story,” and a “no comment” doesn’t provide good copy, so Henry Kissinger might report that a diplomatic session was “constructive with candid interludes.” The journalists record his statement and on examination find they got nothing, which is what Kissinger intended. Israel Shenker suggests a good yardstick that we as consumers of ideas can use. Is the language being used a “dialect of necessity”? Is it a technical dialect of a particular profession of trade? Is there no alternative? Or are the speakers indulging in “intentional doublespeak… intentionally framing their language to deceive”? It requires thoughtful, disinterested observation sometimes to determine which is the case in a particular situation. I don’t really understand all the complaining that I hear and read about abominable use of language. This is the age of the consumer. Changing the language behavior of some salesmen is certainly as impossible as teaching New York cab drivers to speak Standard American English. If we don’t like a product or the way it is marketed, let’s not just complain about it; let’s refuse to buy it. The doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats, and businessmen will then have to use the rustic dialect among the country folk and reserve their “dialect of necessity,” if such is the case, for their colleagues. It has been said, however, that style is the man. If we insist upon translating what a man says into rustic English, we often lose both the style and the man. The “words of learned length and thundering sound” of some salesmen have proved to be worth keeping in the original. Bill Reynolds
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