Why talk that way?

There’s trouble at a Swindon Comprehensive school. It looks like a bunch of kids walked out in support of a teacher who was threatened with disciplinary action for telling pupils that they were being denied a proper education.

All remarkable stuff and I am sure that many commentators better placed than I will be making their opinions known quite soon.

I, however, wish to bring up the following point of order. Hilary Pitts, the head of education at the local council thinks that the whole thing is unfortunate. She says:

"Clearly the students feel very strongly about this teacher's resignation, but students must now re-engage with their learning environment."

Now, I’m not up on council speak and the new language of the pseudo carebear but doesn’t she actually mean go back to school.

I bet re-engage with their learning environment comes from a list of approved phrases or some kind of council manual. Perhaps it is simply a problem resulting from the translation of an EU educational directive penned in French or what-have-you.

Regardless of its provenance its usage makes me wonder who actually falls for this kind of phraseology? What does Hilary think she is achieving by using it? I find it a complete turn off and think that it undermines the speaker’s authority. It smacks of someone who is trying to impress or somehow prove their intellectual credentials unnecessarily.

I don't get it.

Posted by John at May 19, 2004 10:20 AM | TrackBack