Once again you find me in a state of irreducible ire, shaking my head, wagging my finger, baying at the moon. It is the fault of Lily Savage. Well, not really Paul O’Grady’s fault, although if he hadn’t died I might not be in this state.
Paul is to get a statue, plaque, the freedom of Wirral, or some such accolade. They haven’t decided yet. I have no problem with that.
My trigger was the way Wirral Council announced this. A press release told us: “Since the passing of Birkenhead’s legendary entertainer we’ve heard the many asks for us to celebrate his legacy.”
What does “many asks” mean?
Ask is a verb. It means to inquire of, to request. In one narrow sense (a “big ask”: a demanding proposition) it can function as a noun. But “many asks” would obviously be better expressed as: many questions, many inquiries, or “many people have asked”.
My primary three teacher would have slashed her disapproving red pen through the homework of any seven-year-old writing “many asks”.
This press release will have been put out by a PR department. PR stands for “public relations” (not “plainly risible”). The author of the release probably has a media degree. Perhaps even an English degree. But they thought it acceptable to publish that arrangement of words.
What is happening to the world? If this is the output of a professional communicator (ruminate upon that) where are our standards?
I shudder to imagine the fate of any journalist who penned “we’ve heard the many asks” if they had worked for my former editor (a man whose skills as a journalist I greatly admire) Alan Proctor. He’d have eviscerated them. He was a stickler for accuracy and good English.
Everyone used to have bosses like this, no matter what the job. Managers, teachers, gaffers, heads of department who had the most exacting standards.
We who toiled under such tutelage learned. Our levels of concentration were sharpened, our attention to detail was honed. We gave the very best we could drag out of ourselves.
And that was a great thing. A matter of pride. We became better at our jobs, even if we grumbled a bit sometimes.
I don’t see evidence of enforced high standards these days. I rarely hear of students or workers being harshly disciplined into producing their best. The world is greatly the poorer for this.
Jim McLean, a football manager of famously demanding demeanour, said: “If you accept mediocrity, that’s almost certainly what you’ll get.”
But, as is proved by professional communicators spouting garbled half-English, we’re no longer even achieving mediocrity.
Word of the week: Fustigate
Fustigate (verb)
To criticise severely. EG: “Any young reporter writing ‘we’ve heard the many asks’ could expect to be fustigated in public, and at length, to the point where he might wonder if journalism really was the job for him.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
