Words really do matter: Majorspeak revisited

A recent post by Martin Shovel on the Creativity Works blog uses the Wordle website to support an interesting argument that David Cameron is a better speaker than Gordon Brown because he used fewer words of Latin origin in his conference speech than the prime minister did in his.

This reminded me of something I'd written in Lend Me Your Ears in the section comparing written and spoken language (pp. 79-80):

Using words that are hardly ever heard in everyday speech will also make it more difficult for an audience to understand the point you’re trying to get across. For example, the two columns in the example below contain sentences that convey the same message, but the lines on the left and right use different words. Just how much difference the alternative wording makes to the degree of formality and comprehensibility becomes very apparent as soon as you try reading the two versions aloud.

Formal/written

We shall endeavour to commence

the enhancement programme forthwith

in order to ensure that

there is sufficient time

to facilitate the dissemination of

the relevant contractual documentation

to purchasers ahead of the renovations

being brought to completion.

Informal/spoken

We shall try to begin

the repairs immediately

so that

there’s enough time

to send

the contracts

to buyers before the work

is finished.

Apart from making it difficult to understand, the use of words of Latin origin helps to create what I sometimes refer to as a 'cloak of formality' that can make you sound much more stilted and 'unnatural' than you'd intended.

MAJORSPEAK
On this, the way former prime minister John Major spoke used to be a constant source of fascination to me and I once wrote a paper entitled 'Majorspeak' in a book on the 1992 general election. I also touched on some of his eccentricities in a television interview with Martha Kearney before his last conference speech before going to the polls in 1997.

In the following clip, look out for words like 'wayside inn' and 'whomsoever', not to mention the claim that he used to 'erect' a soapbox in Brixton market to talk about 'political matters of the day' - to which the good citizens of the aforementioned borough would respond with 'badinage'.

More recently, if I remember it correctly from when Sir John read his book on cricket on Radio 4's Book of the Week show, the opening line was "On the morrow of my election defeat, I bade farewell to Downing Street and proceeded to the Oval."

Monty Python's take on the expenses scandal

As MPs return to Westminster today to face the music on their expenses, here's some light relief on the subject from Monty Python:

An important but elusive asset for British political party leaders

Yesterday’s video clip of Jo Grimond, under whose leadership the Liberals doubled their number of MPs from ‘hardly any’ to ‘a few’, reminded me of an important but all too rare asset for party leaders in a country where elections are decided by a few floating voters.

Although my mother was a Tory, she was by no means the only one I knew who liked Jo Grimond and regarded him as a 'thoroughly good egg.'

Thousands of others from different parties thought much the same of Margaret Thatcher, Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair, all of whom enjoyed high levels of respect, however grudging, from voters who were not their party’s ‘natural’ supporters.

When Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair, I started trying out this idea that some politicians have an indefinable appeal to voters across party lines on (an admittedly non-random sample of) people – and was amazed to discover how many ‘natural’ Tories said things like “I liked Blair and was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t feel the same about Brown. "

Which brings me to another question prompted by yesterday’s vintage interview, namely which other party leaders have had the benefit of the ‘je ne sais quoi’ factor enjoyed by Grimond, Thatcher, Ashdown and Blair?

I don’t think Heath, Callaghan, Major, Kinnock, Smith, Kennedy or Campbell had it (Vince Cable almost certainly has it, but can't be counted because he was only a temporary leader).

Nor, as far as I can see, do I think that any of the three party leaders currently getting up steam for the next election have it either.

But it would be interesting to know whether others have the same impression - and, if so, why?