the burden of "plain english"

 "In my house, anyone who uses one word when they could have used ten just isn't trying hard enough" --President Bartlett. 

More often than not, I torture the English language with unintended ironies (see use of "insidious" is previous post).  Also, I'm so concerned with PC details that i ignore trivial things like spelling and grammar all together.  ("Go-to...guy?  The problem with English.  Guy's wrong, gal is patronizing and person sounds arch" Leo).  The room to improve, however, is a challenge, and I'd like to think that in a society that is so content with par, that has recently added "meh" to the dictionary in a revealing stroke of our need for another word to describe that which we are unwilling to learn a "real" word for, we who care about the language can raise the bar in this area.  Our language, though useless on my legal resume' (in which i am claiming to be "proficient" in both spanish and french...heh), is amazing, and should be employed in all its variations and eccentricities.  (see "The Professor and the Madman").  Let me explain...

I finished reading Sense and Sensibility this morning, and the same thing that happens every time I read Austen is happening again.  I begin to think in Victorian-Brit prose.  I wrote a letter to my landlord this morning, and inquired as to whether the handyman who used to do some work for him was "still in your employ?" In his employ???  I'm writing this to a guy who has done his share of drugs, and then some, and the evidence of such is reflected in every conversation we have.  Usually, I say something like, Hello Mr. E___, this is Katie Campbell who lives at your property on G___ Street", and he says, "er. uh-huh??" (btw, this man drives a Porsche).  That's the end of any semblance of understanding, and I end up adopting a tone I imagine should be reserved for three years olds, if i knew any.  

Employment of thesauruses (thesauri??) is also discouraged in my current educational sphere.  I was perusing a graded assignment of mine today, and couldn't miss the word "heretofore" circled, with like a thousand lines through it, as if it was some sort of nasty racial slur.  I get that it isn't a popular word, but my motto is that for all words, there is a time and a place (a season, turn, turn), even for the most sesquipedalian among them (See "The Professor and the Madman" again, please).  Also, heretofore means exactly what it sounds like!  Unfortunately, the current trend in legal writing is to use "plain English" at all costs.  bleah.  plain english is boring, it's over-simplified, it's vanilla, it's Governor Rob Ritchie--"good for all time zones."  Why not cater our speech to the subject matter, rather than to the lowest common denominator?  Why should we, who are (supposedly) capable of memorizing the entire Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, be discouraged from devoting a few extra lines to making it sound a bit more palatable?  Must we banish art from our language, as it has been banished from all recent National Budgets? (a topic for another blog, to be sure...)

Perhaps utilizing polysyllables disenfranchises those who have not had the opportunity to get an advanced education.  Perhaps it is more generous to allow legal writing and conversations with one's landlord be accessible to all.  I think this is a worthy argument, but I also think that raising the bar invites everyone to be challenged by it.  And paying for education in those we seek to write for is surely a better plan for equality than limiting our writing to hackneyed terms and turns of phrase.

Bryce just told me that Google released it's top ten searches for 2008.  Brittany Spears and World Wrestling beat President-elect Obama in the number 1 and 2 slots.  The other seven are mostly hot women, some significantly under the age of 20, and all richer than we will ever dream of being.  What does this say about us?  Probably nothing we don't already know:  we're a broke, lazy, self-serving nation of people who all think they can be President (well, at least Vice President) passing out guns and U.S. weekly like they are candy, and eating candy like we have a damn tapeworm (i wish).  

It seems to me that America has very few options left for redemption.  Perhaps by improving our language, we will improve ourselves.  It's worked for Pres-e. Obama so far...god, I hope he keeps the thesaurus out for the next eight years.