Every day elected officials, bureaucrats and the journalists who report about them use catchphrases whose definitions are at best ambiguous. Think of Gov. Martin O?Malley?s favorite term, “working families.” Google regurgitates 444,000 references to “O?Malley and working families.” Or what about environmentalists and planners? phrase of the decade, “smart growth”?
Let?s start with working families. O?Malley peppers his speeches with the term, but he never explains who they are. For example, at an event at University of Maryland in January 2006 to promote freezing college tuition, O?Malley said, “We?re calling for a halt to increasing costs on working families.”
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In this instance, working families infers they are those with children applying to college. Since every family by definition is “working,” what could he mean? Families below a certain income level? That seems the most obvious answer, but he never says which level. The reporters covering the event didn?t ask him. The fact is, freezing tuition subsidizes rich and poor families alike. So which is it?
The ubiquitous term “smart growth” generates the same issues. Those in the planning community generally connect it to policies that promote population growth in areas with public transportation and water and other resources capable of expanding. Sounds good, right? But what if it means policies that force certain communities to change zoning laws and double in size even if members of the community don?t want to? Some in the community might call that “bad growth” or “forced growth.”
Why are these terms bad? Because they are vague and misleading and using them obscures arguments, makes policy difficult to interpret and prevents the vast majority of people from understanding important political discussions. Many times that is the point. Those in power don?t want to say what they really mean because it would require taking a stand about a particular issue.
That is a problem. Our state and our democratic republic can not function properly if we the people can not decipher the differences between candidates or ideas.
George Orwell spoke eloquently about this abuse of language and its consequences in his essay “Politics and the English Language” when he said, “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” That in turn injures both English and politics, he said.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels? “Communist Manifesto” clearly illustrates this point. Almost every paragraph bloats with imprecise words, unsubstantiated claims and jingoistic terms. Where did the philosophy they presented lead humanity?
But it?s easy to fix the problem by speaking clearly. As a mayoral election looms in the city and a presidential contest for the country, we the people ? and especially journalists ? must demand precise words and thoughts from those who want to win our votes. More than the election depends on it.
