THE LANGUAGE used by politicians is no different from the language used by the ordinary man and woman, though they may use different language registers. And yet they expect to communicate to voters with the expectation that what is said will be understood and will persuade the voter to vote for the speaker.
Very often it works, but yet the language is fascinating. The late Errol Barrow’s description of the Civil Service as an army of occupation is as well remembered as the remarkable question raised in his Mirror Image speech.
That late Prime Minister’s speeches belong to a time long past but so, too, does Martin Luther King’s famous and futuristic I Have A Dream speech.
It is remembered not only because of its delivery and its powerful rhetorical flourishes but also because it embodied the hopes and aspirations of a whole race of people.
Nearer home, many Barbadians recall in agreement the wisdom of the late Sir Richard Haynes who was pilloried for allowing to drop from his lips a truth that ought to have earned him praise, but for a politician to admit that impressions matter was interpreted by some as meaning that one should attach more significance to the impression than to the truth.
That, of course, was not what the distinguished Barbadian meant.
At this time of fiscal crisis the eternal utterances of the Right Excellent Frank Walcott are appropriate, for anyone who has “champagne tastes and mauby pockets” is likely to end up with his own recurring fiscal deficit until time catches up with him, since those two things are “diametrically opposed” to each other.
The expression “diametrically opposed” finds a very high place in the political language of this country, because it is an expression used by Sir Lloyd Sandiford that triggered a reaction among those ministers who felt annoyed at being said to be diametrically opposed to a proposed action when they had said they were not. They registered their objection in the most definitive manner.
And just earlier this week Prime Minister Stuart commented on news reports that some temporary Government workers had received notification that their stints were complete.
It did not come as a surprise that his comments have attracted more than ordinary attention. The Prime Minister resorted to recalling the definition of “temporary” from the dictionary of his memory, but some workers or their representatives appear to have interpreted temporary as permanent.
One such person spoke of the legitimate expectations of workers, as though one could expect that a temporary job is permanent.
A commentator on a call-in programme spoke of knowing of “permanent temporary workers” who were so categorized in the banking industry. Mr Stuart’s definition may well be accurate, but as Sir Richard Haynes said “impressions matter”. An impression may vary the meaning of words and a temporary worker may feel that he is not going to lose his job.
In which case we may remember that in Through The Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty said: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
