There is no place for “got” or “get” in the English language, my grandmother often tells me. Her theory is that the use of this all-purpose verb can always be replaced with “to have”. So rather than “I’ve got a pedantic grandmother” – “I have a pedantic grandmother”. Or “I’ve got to watch my words” can be “I have to watch my words”. She sees the words “get”, “got” – and their terrifying American cousin “gotten” – as a lazy and ugly linguistic shortcut.
Perhaps this is a bit of a rigid rule from a lady who steadfastly calls a single piece of broccoli a “broccolo”, but I think communication at the top of British politics would be improved vastly if it were applied there. Because you can’t move for politicians “getting it” into their speeches these days. And it’s a particularly rhetorically flaccid feature of a growing trend for mealy-mouthed answers to urgent questions.
-
“People in Ukip always say that the other politicians don’t get it. I mean, I do get it and I get them,” Tony Blair told the Today programme yesterday, weighing in on the European elections analysis.
-
“The Tories don’t get it,” Ed Miliband earnestly declared in a speech about tackling the cost-of-living crisis in April. And he’s used the phrase often in Commons appearances, particularly during PMQs.
-
“I want you to show the public that you get it,” Theresa May instructed the Police Federation annual conference last week.
-
“I get that,” David Cameron conceded in the Commons after losing the vote regarding military intervention in Syria last year.
-
Then there are the multiple variations on the perpetual mantra of “working hard to get on” employed by both halves of the coalition in their elucidation of a uniquely vague British dream.
“Getting it” and “getting on” are ways of avoiding identification of a problem, and fudging the proposed solution to it – in an irritatingly faux-colloquial tone, to boot.
The author of books about etymology and Inky Fool blogger Mark Forsyth tells me: “It’s not just the word ‘get’ which is so vague (though it has 34 primary meanings listed in the OED), it’s the ‘it’ that amuses me. Whenever I hear a politician saying ‘I get it’, I like to imagine that they’re talking about diarrhoea or syphilis. Mind you, it’s easy to be cruel to politicians. You find just as much of this meaningless stuff in pop music. With it. Where it’s at. etc.”
Yet he does acknowledge why such phrasing is employed by politicians: “The important thing is, of course, that everybody can imagine for themselves what ‘it’ is. It’s the same idea as ‘decent people’ or ‘hard-working families’. Coal miners and hedge-fund managers both believe they’re hard-working. The words are mirrors in which each voter sees themselves. Everybody believes they’re decent. Or almost everybody. I wish sometimes that there were a party representing indecent, workshy bachelors like me. But I fear it shall never come to pass.”
And “getting it” is just a symptom of a wider problem: politicians refusing to speak plainly. A recent example is the Labour leader failing to sum up his leadership and what he offers voters in one word. “I’ll give you two – One Nation”, Miliband replied to the journalist, after making a big show of rolling his eyes. He then went on to give a fuzzy description of what One Nation means. He wouldn’t deign to speak concisely and clearly, regarding it as a silly challenge set by a frivolous journalist.
This is a problem for politicians. Nigel Farage and his party were overwhelmingly successful in the recent European elections, and are dominating the political agenda. It’s often discussed that Farage’s straight-talking manner is appealing to an electorate starved of politicians speaking human. Tory MP Sarah Wollaston pointed out this week that the election results have taught us that people “like straight-talking politicians”. Miliband gives convoluted, wonkish answers, and Cameron is often compared to a PR man for his superficial style – saying little and sticking to his lines. And the majority of their MPs aren’t much better.
Political jargon is inaccessible and alienating, but vague, fluffy phrases can be equally as evasive.
It may be a hackneyed reference, but George Orwell’s Newspeak, the language invented in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, warned that the fewer ways we have to say something, the less call there is to say it at all. If we want transparency in our politics, we have to ask our politicians precisely what they mean by their weasel words. Because at the moment they just don’t seem to get it.
Content from our partners
Related
