Linguistically speaking, what’s been
exercising me this week? I think it must be “first responders”. I must
apologise to my American friends for picking on American expressions, but there
are an enormous number of words and expressions which are queuing up waiting to
be used by speakers of British English. First
responders have always been called emergency
services just as train stations
have always been called railway stations
or simply stations.
These usages are quite
noticeable. President Obama recently said in support of Prime Minister Cameron’s
position on staying in the EU that, when it came to negotiating trade terms, Britain
would go to the back of the queue if
it chose Brexit. The President said queue
instead of the more usual American choice of line. There was much jumping up and down, shouting and
gesticulating by his British audience of vote
leavers who said that his speech must have been written by Downing Street
as his own White House speech writers would never have said that. See how
important the choice of words can be? Although I wouldn’t build a court case on
that evidence alone!
That’s quite a light-weight
example when compared to the following: "borrow a bunch of money and undertake a bunch
of big investment projects" Mathew Yglesias, Vox.com 11.05.16. I don’t know whether the writer was joking but
I tend to think not. Can people really say or write things like that in real
life? It makes me think of the tweet ascribed to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth: There is no such thing as 'American
English'. There is English and there are mistakes. (Elizabeth Windsor on
Twitter). Language is to be taken seriously!
I have to keep reminding myself
that tourism was much frowned upon in
the 1950s and that typewriter for
many years referred to the person who operated the machine before giving way,
probably owing to the confusion or amusement that ensued.
In France, violence, particularly
involving young students, continued this week in reaction to the proposed
changes to labour law practices. Lacking the necessary support, the law has had
to be forced through the National Assembly by the use of Article 49.3 of the
Constitution, what in Britain would be a decree or a statutory instrument and what
American legislators call an executive order. The new law is a watered-down version
of what the government needed to do which is basically lower unemployment and
increase productivity. But, as General de Gaulle said: Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six
variétés de fromage? – how do you govern a country that has more than 246 different
cheeses?
For the people on the streets and
the unions this is a matter of les acquis
sociaux, the collective rights that workers have obtained often by social
conflict and which they will not give up. This term, in the form of les acquis, is in common use in Brussels
in the administration of the EU. France has two main economic structural problems its governments have never been able to get on top of. Sovereign debt,
no government budget has been in balance since 1974. Unemployment since 1980
has rarely fallen below 8%; it is currently over 10%, close to the European
average. Unemployment in Britain, USA, Holland, Germany is around 5%. In
France, unemployment among the young, 15 to 25 year-olds, is pushing 25%.
Despite these extremely worrying figures, there is still great resistance to
change. People still want to be civil servants and have a job protected for
life or, if they can’t work in the public sector, they still want a job for
life. All this against a back-drop of unions and others who keep warning: “don’t
accept any change to employment law, this is the bosses trying to dupe you;
they want to abolish the 35-hour week, they want you to work longer hours for
less pay; they want to be able to sack you more easily when it suits them.” Both
sides are spinning like mad. One thing is sure – it’s high time things changed,
and for the better.
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