Words Without Meaning

In which The Author calls ‘bullshit’

This morning I needed to go to the Royal Mail sorting office at Aberaman Industrial Estate. While I was at my breakfast meeting with Chris and Alwyn yesterday, the postman had tried to deliver something, and (obviously) failed. When I got home last night the familiar red card was waiting inside the front door.

My first thought was it was my next assignment from Orion Books: my second piece of work for them, but my first real copy-editing project. I was rather disappointed that I might have missed out on a whole day’s (and night’s) work. I went to bed, read for a while, and eventually drifted off.

Anyway, I went down to the sorting office early. My undeliverable item turned out to be the second volume of a trilogy, and not the typescript I was expecting. (I’ll be working on the final instalment.) I’ve emailed my contact at Orion this morning. I’ve asked him to give me a heads-up when the script’s on its way, so I can wait in the house until the postman comes.

I was on the way out of Aberaman Industrial Estate when I spotted a small cluster of advertising boards near the entrance. Among the other businesses operating on the estate there’s a chap that repairs and restores clocks; there’s a guy who fixes computers; there’s a pet food supplier; there’s a garage; there’s a very worthwhile social enterprise which recycles old furniture and household items.

And there’s a company with a three-letter name, and the tagline ‘Complete Solutions.’

I have no idea what this business does. The board gave no further information – just that it offers ‘complete solutions.’

I had to ask myself, ‘Complete solutions to what, exactly?’ Last Sunday’s unstartable crossword? Einstein’s field equations? The Middle East crisis? Our increasing demand for clean, cheap energy?

Could it be a British equivalent of the Institute for Advanced Studies. I can envision the world’s finest minds brainstorming these and a hundred other questions, in the relative seclusion and scenic location of the South Wales Valleys. After all, if it’s good enough for the Royal Opera House, it’s good enough for the likes of Prof. Stephen Hawking!

Then again, instead of a service, they could be dealing in products. Maybe it’s a chemicals manufacturer, selling test tubes full of every soluble compound known to science.

Of all these possibilities, I think the truth is probably more prosaic. The owners have read a little book on marketing, and thrown a couple of buzzwords into the mix for good effect.

I’ve seen another specimen recently, too. It’s some sort of electrical service company. Their vans are painted with a slogan that goes something like ‘Global Service Delivery’, or some such cobblers.

Global? Really? If someone in Mombasa or Pyongyang or Tierra del Fuego called them up to say their lights had gone out, would this little business from Aberaman be able to respond? You can work that out for yourselves.

I hate this sort of management guru bollocks, because it’s purely empty jargon for the sake of it. Our briefings from Waterstones head office became increasingly prone to this sort of shite before I finished working there.

I see it every day, in the newspapers and on websites. I hear it every day on the radio, in political speeches, market analyses, and Radio 4’s large number of pointless programmes about business and the meejah.

In fact, it’s almost a flashback to what I wrote about in ‘Bullshit Detector‘, back when I was a student. Hardly anybody bothers to use language with precision any more. They’re too busy padding out their vacuous verbiage with pretentious piffle, designed to convince fools (i.e. us, the reading and listening people) that what they’re saying has validity and meaning.

That’s why it was interesting to hear a piece on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago. They were discussing scientific papers, and their comprehensibility (or not). But the whole point of a scientific paper is to present data in an unambiguous, precise and clearly defined way. When one scientist uses the word ‘proton’, every other scientist knows what he (or she) is talking about.

If the general public don’t understand what they’re talking about, that’s a failure of the education system, not a failure on the scientist’s part. Specialised language exists to facilitate clear communication between specialists.

When you go to the doctor and say, ‘My stomach’s been a bit troublesome lately,’ he or she doesn’t expect you to know the anatomical names of the body parts, or the complex physiology of the human digestive system. The doctor knows these things, however. He or she can communicate with others within the medical profession because of it.

But that degree of precision isn’t demanded of us, the patients. We’d be staggered if a doctor did ask to rattle off the names of enzymes and processes. We’d call ‘bullshit’ a few seconds into the consultation.

On the other hand we quite happily swallow the bullshit emanating from the Westminster Bubble, The Apprentice wannabes, advertising executives, management textbooks, self-help manuals, badly-sourced websites, unattributed quotations in newspapers, and so-called ‘lifestyle’ journalism. Personally, I think we need to start calling ‘bullshit’ a lot more often.

After all, I’ve never yet met a doctor who claimed to offer ‘complete solutions.’

Have you?

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Here Is Your New Word For Today

In which The Author passes on a challenge

During Friday evening’s edition of PM on Radio 4, regular presenter Eddie Mair played a small clip of an earlier interview with the British style guru Peter York. During the piece, Mr York had used the word ‘intertwangled’. It seems perfectly obvious (to me, anyway) what he meant. If it was just a slip of the tongue, it was an amusing one. If Mr York was trying to coin a new portmanteau word, a combination of ‘intertwined’ and ‘entangled’, he succeeded admirably. Even so, several listeners had contacted the programme to ask if ‘intertwangled’ really was a word.

To try and solve the problem, Mr Mair spoke to a lady who works on the Oxford English Dictionary. She seemed quite happy to entertain the possibility of ‘intertwangled’. After all, she said, someone’s already used it as a word, so logically speaking it must exist. She’d looked into the archives too, and found that it was first used in print in 1960. Unfortunately, it didn’t catch on at the time. Mr York’s on-air use of the word has probably brought it to a wider audience.

It has to be said that Mr York has form in this regard. It was he who coined the phrase ‘Sloane Ranger’ to describe those frightfully well-brought-up gels who frequented the wine bars and boutiques of Chelsea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. If he wants to lay claim to a new word, then I say ‘all the best’ to him.

Eddie Mair then set his listeners a challenge: To get ‘intertwangled’ into the dictionary. If a sufficiently large number of people use a word in print, on air, or online, after a while it enters common currency and earns its place in the dictionary. On Friday evening, he said he’d like to get ‘intertwangled’ trending on Twitter over the weekend. He used the word himself in last night’s programme, to keep it in circulation.

I for one think Mr Mair’s on to something. After all, two years ago hardly anybody knew the meaning of the word ‘twerk’ – apart from Barry Cryer, who suggested (on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue) that it was the place where Yorkshire people went to earn a living. Suddenly, for no good reason (apart from some silly bint’s dancing on MTV) it became the buzzword of the year.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to try and infiltrate the word ‘intertwangled’ into conversation, print, social media, or anywhere else the opportunity arises. Let’s all support Eddie Mair’s campaign to get ‘intertwangled’ into the dictionary where it belongs. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s over to you.