Mind your language
NOW, if you can tear your attention away from speculating about my age for a few minutes, spare a thought for the woes of wireless broadcasters.
I don't mean the wickedness of Mr John Hirt and his pals in being unkind to the World Service — though, good- ness knows, it is provoking. What has struck me recently is the difficulty that broadcasters encounter from two differ- ent causes. At one moment they torture the language in a scripted bulletin pared down to save time. At the next they have to put on air unscripted remarks by politicians and suchlike that are not only rambling but also tend to fall into cliché and empty formula.
Even Mr John Tusa (who is on the side of the angels in the World Service War for Civilisation) caught himself parroting the speech of his enemies. He was discussing the needless bureaucracy of the new proposals, which would give rise to `an iterative process — to use the management cant — of the most destructive kind'. Not that iterative is a particularly offensive term. Iteration is a solid 15th-century word that refers both to speech and liturgy; Shakespeare uses it a couple of times (conscious of its slightly elevated flavour).
Much more annoying is perceived. It is a word used by broadcasters anxious to let you know that they don't necessarily agree with the views they are reporting. Within ten minutes the other day we had, on Radio Four news, the 'per- ceived decline in moral standards' and `Dr Carey's apparent refusal to con- demn the adultery of the Prince and Princess of Wales'.
The OED says the sense of apparent that denotes 'what is not necessarily real' is the commoner meaning now; it used to mean 'obvious', which it still can. Perceived has followed in the foot- steps of apparent. As a verb it means 'to spot': 'He perceived she was pregnant'; used adjectivally it usually means a mis- taken apprehension. But the precise degree of subjectivity is not specified. It is only too apparent that the perceived objectivity of radio news journalists is open to question.
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