I don't have any problem with "dumbing-down" as you call it, to explain the broad principles of complicated technical ideas without the rigour of incomprehensible detail.

But that's not what's happening here. Political ideas are inherently simple - foreigners bad, money good, me right, you wrong - that kind of thing. The lib dems weren't attempting to articulate some arcane economic theorem to the great unwashed, they were just slagging off the tories, so they weren't "dumbing-down", they were just speaking incoherently. If a politician is too dumb even to express themselves how can I have any confidence in what they have to say.

English grammar is more complicated than it needs to be and other languages manage without inflection, number, case, tense, mood and so on, inferring much from the context and not needing the rest. I'm pretty progressive and don't have any great problem with the gradual evolution of language, but if you can't shape the ideas in your head into well-formed coherent language then, all things being equal, those ideas are gibberish too.

No, they were just using everyday english.

as you say - foreigners bad, money good, me right, you wrong.

nice & simple.

I'm just saying we shouldn't immediately run to the doctors anytime anyone gets sick. I've come down with an illness once in the last two years which was Norovirus. I also work on my car and then eat a sandwich with oily hands, etc etc, a bit of dirt and muck is good for you.
I know people who STERILE their plates, knifes and forks before they use them, even if they are washed already and in the drawer.

How do they do that? Do they have an autoclave?

Sounds a bit like OCD to me.

Just to put it in perspective:

Hundreds of thousands of people used to get polio, and it crippled thousands of them. There is no cure, and if you get the disease you have something like a 1 in 100 chance of being paralysed for life - and depending on the severity of that paralysis, that can be a very short life.

Rubella is a relatively benign infectious disease of childhood (I can remember having it) so you might wonder about the benefit of vaccinating against it, but catch it in early pregnancy and it can damage the unborn child and cause birth defects.

The soil bacteria Clostridium tetani is common enough in your garden, but if you're unlucky enough to get soil in a wound, like when you cut your hand gardening, the bacterium can cause tetanus, and if it does it's 50:50 whether you survive. Vaccination prevents it.

Smallpox has killed millions of people, it's very infectious and if you get it you're more likely than not to die, and if you don't die you'll be scarred for life - ever wonder why Elizabeth I wore so much make-up? Vaccination not only gives you immunity, it actually allowed the complete eradication of the disease world-wide.

Around 10% of the UK population catch flu each year. It's not always a serious illness, and sometimes you'd hardly know you were infected, but it can be very unpleasant, and it kills thousands each year. The Spanish flu pandemic that followed the first world war actually killed more fit young men then died in the fighting! The variant bird-flu isn't contagious, which is good because it's virtually always fatal, but the flu virus is a clever bugger that mutates all the time, and it's a fair bet that one day bird-flu will become contagious, and if we don't have a vaccine for that it's goodnight Vienna.

Vaccination is a remarkable discovery and creates virtually complete immunity to otherwise incurable debilitating and life-threatening diseases. What's not to love?

You're right, it's actually harder to make one's message accessible to the largest amount of people and still retain its meaning than use a bunch of long words to try to and impress people.

But those that do have a good grasp of English get a confused message; moreover, would recognise poor literacy skills.


There goes another one of your 'strawman' fallacies.

For the purpose of being fair, I'd say that is also a logical fallacy. Not being able to employ good grammar, doesn't necessarily mean your ideas are gibberish. Although I would admit, if someone's grammar was not at least at my level, which I regard as average, then I would find it off-putting.

You're right of course. There's no logical fallacy, I understand that a badly presented idea doesn't necessarily mean the idea is bad, but I'm still going to be strongly influenced by the presentation. Likewise I'm likely to warm to a well-presented idea, but that doesn't necessarily make the idea sound.

However, in politics the argument often doesn't appeal to reason but is an appeal to emotion - selling a self-image or belief rather than a logical proposition founded on solid axioms. As a for-instance I like Nigel Farage, and I'm as likely to vote UKIP on the strength of that alone as I am to vote for a party that might better represent my political beliefs but is supported by slimy know-nothing spineless weasels.

And the latest from NWN...

"Pirates, paramedics and even a group of astraonauts, as well as plenty of other Crafty Crafters, are making their way along the Kennet and Avon canal in celebration of the Newbury Round Table’s 60th..."

And later...

"Less than 90 minutes since the first crafters set sale and teams are already breezing across the finish line at Victoria Park to applaudes from the public."

Oh. My. God.

And the downside to that would be.....?

Everybody spoke very posh in those days, even the bystanders when interviewed.

We all knew our place back then and did what we were told because our peers knew best.

Of course, to them it wasn't 'posh' to them it was just normal. It only sounds 'posh' because of lazy modern day pronounciation.

Language has to grow and develop but it doesn't automatically mean standards of speech and diction have to drop.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/2013/fire-at-the-downgate

The fire was out by 4.33pm but firefighters remained on the scene using thermal imaging characters to check for hot spots.

Thermal imaging characters?? The mind boggles.

This week's howler - not spelling or grammar this time but arithmetic.

Reporting the result of the Victoria Ward election they give the results for the Apoliticals as 158 and 136 votes then those for Labour 148 and 130 - and say this put Labour in 7th and 8th position...

Another episode in the NWN hall of shame.

The item today on the dogs trust has one paragraph alone with at least three spelling errors;

"Some of her favourite and most remembered dogs are ones that took extra effort to get them into the centre and rehomed including dogs which were abandoned near Newbury College, at Chieveley services and a Lucrher who was run over by a lorry at Membry Services and broke its leg only for the staff to later discover she was pregant with 11 puppies."

If anyone at NWN can provide some input into how these stories get published without being spell-checked, it would be very interesting to hear.

No doubt there are extremely tight deadlines, and pressure I can't imagine, but I would love to hear more detail around the process from submission to publication, and am also happy to offer my support where possible to keep our fantastic local paper a quality production.

Claude le Pedant

if you ask me I have a sneaky feeling that thses errors are deliberatily insterted to give people with time on their hands something to do.