Tomorrow happens to be Plain English Day which has in recent years morphed into International Plain Language Day designed to promote the proper use of language. In other words the aim is to cut out all the gibberish, mumbo jumbo, codswallop, balderdash, tripe, tommyrot, twaddle, tosh and bosh you may have become accustomed to. heaven forbid, some of it even in PostScript.
In the past the Plain English campaign has handed out annual Foot in Mouth Awards given to the biggest culprits, usually politicians who have a certain knack of wrecking the English language. Interestingly no awards have been given in the past couple of years possibly because there have been too many candidates to choose from.
It probably won’t come as a great surprise that a three-time “winner” is former British prime minister Boris Johnson. In 2004 he came up with the following baffling response on a TV panel show: “I cannot fail to disagree with you less.”
Mr Boris won it again in 2016 when he claimed Brexit would be a “titanic success” — a rather unfortunate choice of words when you consider what happened to the ship.
However it is unlikely anyone will beat the offering of former US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld who in 2003 uttered the following splendid observation:
“As we know, there are known knowns, there are things we know we know. There are also known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
It’s hard to follow that but we must not overlook George W Bush who received a well-earned Life Time Achievement Award for “services to gobbledygook”.
Ducking the question
On the lighter side, supermodel Naomi Campbell was awarded the 2006 prize after commenting, “I love England, especially the food. There’s nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta”.
One of the more bizarre comments which won in 1998 came from Welsh MP Rhodi Morgan. When asked if he wanted to be leader of the Welsh Assembly he replied: “Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”
So is that a yes or a no? It is certainly a very useful riposte which we all might find useful when someone asks an awkward question.
Full of holes
The huge sinkhole that suddenly appeared on Samsen Road in Bangkok recently serves as a gentle reminder of the days when holes, thankfully of a smaller variety, made regular appearances on roads in the Big Mango.
The golden era was in the 1970s and 80s when holes and excavations in Bangkok highways popped up everywhere. No vehicle was immune and tuk-tuk drivers experienced a particularly distressing time. On one occasion an oil tanker fell into a giant crater on Wireless Road and it took days to move it, creating a gridlock of apocalyptic proportions.
Foot soldiers
More pertinent to the pedestrian population of course are holes in the pavement. We have all probably plunged into a hole in Bangkok at some time or another and it is not a happy experience.
Back in the days when the Post was based at Soi Saladaeng, for a period the soi was a disaster area thanks to road works. Someone who experienced this in a most painful fashion was the newspaper’s cartoonist Nop. He had nipped out for a bite to eat one night when he tumbled down an open drain. It was a clear case of noppus droppus.
Other members of the editorial department were hobbling about after suffering similar experiences and for a while our office resembled the Ministry of Funny Walks.
Musical excavations
Of course holes are not confined to Bangkok. In London the excavations used to provide lunchtime entertainment for bored city gentlemen who would admire holes being dug while they munched their cheese and tomato sandwiches. The late British actor Bernard Cribbins enjoyed a hit in 1962 with a song entitled Hole in the Ground in which a man digging a large hole ends up burying a snooty bowler-hatted city gent who criticises his efforts.
“Holes” also receive an honourable mention in the Beatles’ epic A Day in the Life with the last verse featuring “four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” and concluding “Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall”.
John Lennon had been inspired by a news item in the Daily Mail in 1967 which reported 4,000 potholes in Blackburn’s roads. As for mentioning the Albert Hall, Lennon admitted he simply included words that sounded good together.
Soap bubbles
The memory cells of our more mature readers have been working overtime recently as they recall ancient TV commercials. Some remember the soap ad “You’ll look a little lovelier each day with fabulous pink Camay”. If you weren’t convinced by that message an ad for the same soap claimed it was “worth nine guineas an ounce” which meant it must be good.
One reader says he remembers the strong rivalry of the washing powder companies prompting slogans for their commercials like: “Hold it up to the light, not a stain in sight”, “Tide’s in, dirt’s out” and a brand that “washes whiter than white”.
I must admit that when those ads came on I would nip out to the kitchen for a cup of tea.