I’ve had this book on my shelf since 1979. While it is no longer in print, it’s interesting to see that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Excerpted from Word Abuse – How the words we use use us by Donna Woolfolk Cross. (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979 )
Chapter 2: “Professional Word Abusers”
Government officials are among the worst abusers of the language. They use language for wilier purposes than mere muddling. Bureaucratese helps to create an impression of order and stability, and of a condition where everything is under sure control. If circumstances happen to contradict a government official, then he simply pumps more hot air into the language and it floats away from the disagreeable facts. Press Secretary Ron Ziegler’s now classic remark that one of President Nixon’s obviously mendacious statements was “no longer operative” is an excellent example. How apparently reasonable that sounds. A statement that was once operative just isn’t anymore, so the question of the truth or falsehood ceases to exist. No muss, no fuss, nothing for us to get all concerned about. After all, one can hardly blame a man if his statement breaks down. There’s also the suggestion here that somehow the statement can now be taken in for repairs and fixed. If Ron Ziegler had been around to write press releases for other celebrated figures of the past, we might have on record such disclaimers as these, invented by journalist Sidney Harris:
Jack the Ripper: I regret that my sexual anomalies, stemming from a repression in childhood, led me to indiscreet violation of the persons of some ladies.
John Dillinger: Within the time frame of my youth, it was my proclivity toward derring-do that led to further acts of doubtful legitimacy.
Attila the Hun: Perhaps it was excessive zeal, but I sincerely felt that the welfare of Western barbarism made it imperative to halt the spread of civilization by any means within my power.
Judas Iscariot: In extenuation, may I remind you that the man was a troublemaker, an outside agitator from Nazareth, and obviously trying to subvert law and order.1
If you want to appear in control and on top of things, then you can never admit you don’t know the answer to something. I cannot resist the temptation to quote Ron Ziegler one more time; he is, as Winston Churchill said of Ramsay MacDonald, “a man with the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts.” Here, Ziegler is answering a question about the condition of some of the Watergate tapes:
I would feel that most of the conversation that took place in those areas of the White House that did have the recording system would in almost their entirety be in existence but the special prosecutor, the court, and I think, the American people are sufficiently familiar with the recording system to know where the recording devices existed and to know the situation in terms of the recording process but I feel, although the process has not been undertaken yet in preparation of the material to abide by the court decision, really, what the answer to that question is.
The sheer bulk of words suggests that something is being said. If you look at the statement closely, however, you see that Ziegler is simply saying, “I don’t know.”
This same desire to make problems seem stable and under control must have been behind then Vice-President Rockefeller’s comment that the reason the nation’s economy was such a mess was that the Administration had not yet been able to “conceptualize a solution.” That’s much more reassuring than hearing the President doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what to do next, isn’t it? Or listen to Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, explain why inflation wasn’t going away:
It is a very tricky policy problem to find the particular calibration and timing that would be appropriate to stem the acceleration in risk premiums created by falling incomes without prematurely aborting the decline in the inflation-generated risk premiums.
The power to obscure the flame of meaning in the smoke of words did not disappear with the Nixon administration. There is ample evidence that the talent has survived into the Jimmy Carter era. Less than a week after Carter commanded that all government documents be written in language “as clear and simple as possible,” he signed into law an order for a tariff increase on imported citizen-band radios which included the following statement:
Expedited adjustment assistance would be ineffective in helping the industry cope with current problems of severe inventory overhang, low prices, and financial losses.
In plain English, this appears to mean that federal aid to American manufacturers of citizen-band radios will not help solve their financial problems.
Here is Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal offering cryptic comfort to the Italian government of Premier Giulio Andreotti:
I was pleased to learn that during the coming year the Government plans to attack the twin problems of inflation and external disequilibrium, while aiming for a rate of growth which will not exacerbate other domestic economic problems.
This same kind of verbal posturing is found in a government spokesman’s recent reference to “advance downward adjustments” – in other words, budget cuts. Another official used the term “confrontation management” when what he really meant was “riot-control.”
Officialese is sometimes used to cover up the most tragic errors. Reporting on the Teton Dome collapse in Idaho that killed fourteen people, the investigating panel concluded that the calamity was due to “an unfortunate choice of design measures together with less than conventional precautions.” The New York Times of June 26, 1977, included this report of a fatal fire:
Cyanide fumes and carbon monoxide pouring from a padded cell apparently set afire by a juvenile inmate were said to have caused the death of 42 inmates and visitors at Maury County jail in Columbia, Tenn., Sunday. The gases were generated by the fire in the padding. On the basis of tests, the padding was said to be nonflammable, but those tests “may not have been appropriate,” one official said.
What exactly did this official mean? Your guess is as good as mine.
In “The Briefing,” Peter Berger imagines how a government spokesman, by the adroit use of language, maintains this posture of “steady at the controls” in the face of the ultimate crisis:
Q. Last night a flaming red sky in the North could be seen from every port in the United States. Also, last night, millions of Americans saw on all three networks the mile high figure of an angel with a sword in his right hand. Do you feel the term “alleged apparition” is still the proper language for this?
A. I’m not authorized to change the language of the announcement.
Q. Is the White House aware of the possibility that the apparition may spell the end of the world?
A. It seems to me that the use of alarmist language is counter productive.2
In bureaucratese, the use of big words gives the simplest ideas the appearance of being major pronouncements. Gerald Ford was recently a guest lecturer at Yale, where was asked which former President he likes best. His answer? “I identify affirmatively with Harry Truman.”
Words like routinization, credibility, time frame, delivery systems, input, downplay, and prioritize help government spokesmen appear knowledgeable while actually saying little. About twelve years ago, the publishers of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language gathered a group of well-known critics and authors to serve as a “Usage Panel” to pass judgment on new language coinages. Government bureaucratese, expectedly, did not fare well. Here are some of the panel’s comments:
On the use of “downplay” (as in “the delegate downplayed the reported anxiety over the party’s abortion plank”):
Robert Coughlin: Revolting
Jacques Barzun: What’s wrong with “played down?” Shall we be saying “The defeated candidate ingave?”
Peter De Vries: If I heard a speaker use it, I would upget and outwalk.
On “input”: (as in “The President had access to varied input”):
Nat Hentoff: Mechanical shorthand that rusts thought.
Jacques Barzun: . . . jargon- and very vague, since input can mean anything from a Congressional appropriation to a frankfurter at lunch.
Lewis Mumford: It is the equivalent of “y’know” for those who don’t know the right word.
Peter De Vries: The thought of putting information into a President is a little grotesque.
On “prioritize” (as in “a first attempt to prioritize the tasks facing the new administration”):
Heywood Hale Broun: I’m afraid this headacheizes me too much for sensible comment.
Russell Baker: Pentagonese. Are we all going to start writing like a building?
In a devastating indictment of government officialese, Stuart Chase cites the following instance:
A New York plumber wrote the Bureau of Standards in Washington that he had found hydrochloric acid fine for cleaning drains, and was it harmless? Washington replied: “The efficacy of hydrochloric acid is indisputable, but the chlorine residue is incompatible with metallic permanence.”
The plumber wrote back that he was mighty glad the bureau agreed with him. The bureau replied with a note of alarm: “We cannot assume responsibility for the production of noxious residues with hydrochloric acid, and suggest that you use an alternate procedure.” The plumber was happy to learn that the bureau still agreed with him.
Whereupon Washington exploded: “Don’t use hydrochloric acid; it eats the hell out of the pipes!”3
1. Sidney Harris, Town and County News, November 28, 1974
2. Peter Berger, “The Briefing.” In Pouring Down Words, S.H. Elgin, ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975
3. Stuart Chase, “Gobbledygook.” In Power of Words, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1953.
Thanks for sharing Blue Lyon, makes me feel better about reading some piece of gobbledygook and going “huh” and wondering if my brain was no longer in working condition.