THE APPALLING NEW ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Every now and then the author feels the need to make a stand against the pathetic misuse of the English language, particularly by the British. Hot on the heels of the bad news regarding depreciating standards in education, particularly in Great Britain, compared with the performance of many Asian nations. The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), following comprehensive school inspections, is getting more derogatory regarding this deplorable dumbing down, so admired by the left wing body that runs the everyday business of trying to develop our youngsters. I'm sure that out there we have some conscientious teachers, but too many, possibly those of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), spend more time concentrating on strike action, rather than educating and disciplining their charges. This may be a deep seated ploy by the Labour movement to insure that well educated, intelligent people won't vote for socialism. The front bench of the Parliamentary Labour Party, I'm sure, advocates this policy, as they are particularly dim, to a man/woman.

The point that this item is endeavouring to clarify, however, is that from a language bristling with descriptive words, in the main folk limit themselves to but a few. The nauseating misuse of words such as issue, focus and amazing is frightful. One imagines that the media is fighting against our limited education system, which never appears to fight back. I can't comprehend, that during my school days, had I included the unnecessary 'like' in my speech, I would have been corrected instantly. The same would have happened at home, had my mother heard me speak in such a pathetic fashion. 'Cool' is another word at every verse end, even by adults. As a jazz fan, the word was descriptive in the mid 20th.century with the transition in styles from 'hot', bop to cool; Shorty Rogers/Gerry Mulligan on the West Coast of USA, and Miles Davis in the East. Unfortunately, rather like the term, 'chill out', which seems to be a by product of the drugs culture, so beloved by 'trendy' folk, mainly in the media, and the British Broadcasting Corporation in particular.

Interestingly, my hackles were raised on the subject when watching a newscast from the BBC on the very subject outlined above. The broadcast was overloaded with all these nonsensical words: One assumes that for 'focus' the reporter means concentrate; try concern or problem for 'issue'. Finally, during the weather forecast that followed the bulletin, the viewers saw an impressive photograph of the towers at Canary Wharf, peeking above the top of the low lying cloud; the forecaster referred to the situation as amazing, which would suggest that it was some kind of ascension; I'm sure 'extraordinary' would have been more suitable.

DON'T GET ME STARTED ON 'UNI', FOR YOU KNOW WHAT.