Shanghai Tan

While some nations¹ fight against the extinction of their language, such as l’Office québécois de la langue française who fight desperately for preserving French usage in Québec; other nations fight for preserving the quality of their language, such as the Plain English Compaign organism at UK, founded at 1979.

It is understandable that the English language, by being the world’s most used language and also being mostly used by non native English speakers, could become insanely distort in general usage, due to its immense popularity. But more surprisingly, as the Plain English Compaign has shown years over years, the people who speak gobbledygook and make baffled comments include as much native English speakers as non natives. To bring awareness to the public on English quality and clarity, the Plain English Compaign came up with an excellent idea, they give awards to public figures, of mostly English speaking countries, including politiciens, journalists, artists, actors, CEO, etc. One of those award is the Foot in Mouth award, to honor those who make baffled and confusing comments in public.

So here we go with the award of 2007. The award goes to Steve McClaren, the lately-sacked coach of England soccer team failing to qualify his team for Euro 2008. He was quoted at Radio 5 Live with:
“He is inexperienced, but he’s experienced in terms of what he’s been through.”

The runner-up for this year is our dear leader the CEO of the American Empire, President George W. Bush, who is well known for making confusing or totally meaningless comments in public. So here’s his quote:
“All I can tell you is that when the governor calls, I answer his phone.”

For your entertainment, I’m going to quote the winners of other years as well, so to illustrate that even English native speakers speak broken English…

2006 -  Top model Naomi Campbell:
“I love England, especially the food. There’s nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta.”

2005 – Rt Hon Rhodri Morgan AM, the First Minister for Wales:
“The only thing which isn’t up for grabs is no change and I think it’s fair to say, it’s all to play for, except for no change.”

2004 – Boris Johnson MP for his remark on the BBC news quiz programme, ‘Have I Got News For You’:
“I could not fail to disagree with you less.” (so, yes or no?)

2003 – Former Secretary of Defense² Donald Rumsfeld:
“… because as we know, there are known knowns; … We also know there are known unknowns; … But there are also unknown unknowns…”
(I just love it, maybe this is going to be Rumsfeld’s only legacy?)

2002 – Actor Richard Gere who said:
“I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake, I’d think ‘No, actually I am a giraffe.’ ”

2001 – Artist Tracey Emin, who explained:
“When it comes to words I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in terms of art – and it’s my words that actually make my art quite unique.”

2000 – Hollywood start Alicia Silverstone:
“I think that [the film] ‘Clueless’ was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it’s true lightness.”

Footnotes:

1. Since the province of Québec is not qualified as a country, the word nation fit in perfectly, and we have the Canadian constitution to prove that!
2. If you feel the need to ask me “which country’s secretary of defense”, I would say, he is undoubtly the “secretary of defense of the world”!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Scrapbook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.