Yesterday we asked readers to help us identify the euphemistic language of the shonk and the spiv, and you didn’t let us down.
We can’t fit all the responses we got into one day so to start here’s a couple that inevitably get wheeled out under scrutiny — and a recent instant classic from the Maguire-Berejiklian discourse:
‘I’ll have to take that on notice’: A classic time-buyer, stated, as our correspondent notes, with the “hope that we, the people, will never hear about it again”.
Learnings: As another reader describes this one, “In the world of corporate mumbo jumbo, the alleged enlightenment arrived at via the path of ineptitude requires the grace of this irritating conceit. The honest alternative would involve paying some respect to the idea that learning lessons through experience is a venerable idea as old as the hills — it just needs not to be forgotten. Importantly, it doesn’t need a stupid new word implying its user has been blessed with some new and innovative revelation.”
‘I don’t need to know about that’: A good phrase to employ if your boyfriend/possible future husband (who is also an MP who reports to you and is also “nothing of note“) starts telling you about allegedly corrupt business dealings. After all, who knows who might be listening?
Great stuff. Keep them coming.
How about “As the matter is under a formal investigation by the (insert relevant agency), it would be inappropriate for me to comment”.
I notice that Morrison was quick to let us know that a search of the database when he was Treasurer revealed no correspondence between himself and Maguire, and nothing had yet turned up from his time as PM either.
He couldn’t get that into the public domain quickly enough. Yet how often have we seen responses to FOI requests, or Questions on Notice, that advise “This would cause a substantial diversion of the department’s resources that I am not prepared to authorise” when the Minister or Dept does not want the answer out there.
Borat in the film of the same name was the first to “make learnings” as I remember it.
it is interesting that our politicians and public talking heads use him as a role model.
I’d like to think that Borat originated that malignancy but was he not simply ridiculing an already current amerikanizm?
Sounds like something a Valley Girl or 90210 character would say.
The experts on this lexicon would surely be the late great John Clarke. And, of course, Sir Humphrey Appleby.
The word “obviously”. It was barely passable when sports commentators and other assorteds used it because it contained a lot of letters and sounded as if they knew more than they did.
Now, I am sad to say, too many people who should know better use it too frequently.