BBC's barbarian leader
From Dr Sheridan Gilley Sir: It is sad to discover that the director- general of the BBC talks and writes such appalling English (`My vision for the BBC', 20 November). Even your brief extract from his speech is a tangle of misused words and mixed metaphors. How on earth can a 'lever' be said to be 'shaping' any- thing, let alone be critical? How can 'resources' explore 'principles'? How can anyone 'develop' a 'journey', and how can that be 'interactive'? Anything, it seems, can be `developed'. Is a 'learning revolu- tion' a revolution which is learning some- thing, or is it what the literate would call 'a revolution in learning'? Is a 'learning cen- 'And may the second-best man win!' tre' one which is engaged in learning, or a centre at which one learns? Thrice, at least, Mr Dyke speaks of wanting to 'deliver a vision', as if it were a sack of potatoes. But a vision is seen.
And then there are the sentences which run these all together. I might 'develop' Mr Dyke's favourite metaphor to suggest that never on so brief a linguistic 'journey' have there been so many pile-ups on the motor- way of language.
I doubt that Mr Dyke could achieve even a C in GCSE English. He can only be plan- ning the conversion of the nation to a new form of linguistic barbarism.
Sheridan Gilley
Department of Theology, University of Durham, Abbey House, Palace Green, Durham
Previous page
