The Alternate Reality News Service has convened a forum to explore the use of the term “enhanced interrogation” by the United States government to describe acts that it has, in other circumstances, called “torture.” On the panel are alternate universe versions of Samuel Johnson, William Strunk and E. B. White and George Orwell. The moderator is The Language Corrector Dude.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
BRENDA BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: Okay, I know you’re thrilled to be leading a discussion of your own, but, really, Language Corrector Dude, pull yourself together.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Thank you for having enough faith in me to allow me –
BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: Okay, gonna stop you right there before you embarrass yourself any further. I originally asked Amritsar to do this, but she came down with one of her little headaches and had to go lie down in a dark room.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Okay, but –
BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: Then, I asked The Tech Answer Guy, but he declined, saying he was too busy preparing for a New Age Monster Truck Rally that’s going to be held in six weeks.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Sure, that’s a little demeaning. Still –
BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: The Biz Whiz wanted an outrageous sum of money to host this forum and knew that I would be too lazy to look at his contract to see if we were obligated to pay it to him. Bastard!
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: I see. (long pause) And, then you thought of me! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK –
BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE! GET A GRIP! DO I HAVE TO SLAP YOU INTO THE NEXT EDITION OF THE OED?!
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Okay. Sorry. So, umm, my conclusion is that the government acted in bad faith when it started using the term “enhanced interrogation techniques” to describe what everybody once agreed was torture. The implications are –
GEORGE ORWELL: Shouldn’t you start with an introduction?
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Staggering for – what?
ORWELL: Isn’t it customary to put the conclusion at the end?
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Oh! Umm…okay. Sorry. My…my note cards seem to have gotten mixed up.
SAMUEL JOHNSON: Note cards? You’re looking at a box which is emitting some form of light.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: They’re on my computer. Nobody uses paper note cards any more!
ORWELL: So, the introduction?
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Right. Okay. Umm…malfeasnace…misfeasance…Miss Pheasant…Donald Pleas – ah, here we are. For the last decade, the United States government has been using the term “enhanced interrogation” to describe waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other forms of questioning suspects that were once considered “torture.” There seems to be an implication that if you change the name of an act, the act itself will not seem so reprehensible, that, in fact, changing the name of an illegal act will somehow make it legal. Samuel Johnson, author of one of the first dictionaries of the English language, what do you make of this?
JOHNSON: Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Exactly. It is a gross manipulation of – excuse me?
JOHNSON: Language is a living, breathing beastie. It must evolve or it will die.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: But…but…but surely words must maintain some semblance of their original meaning. I mean, if politicians can just rename things at will, we’re no better than animals in the jungle!
JOHNSON: (shrugs) The first edition of my dictionary contained 42,773 words. I thought that was a lot – bloody thing took me nine years to write! Today, there are over a million words in the English language, with new ones being added every year. I would say that that ship has set sail, crossed the ocean to America, followed the coast on its way to the Antarctic and was well on its way to completing the return journey!
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: So, you’re not incensed by the government’s abuse of language?
JOHNSON: Trust me, lad: there have been worse.
LONG PAUSE.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: You’re off the panel!
JOHNSON: Beg pardon?
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: You heard me. Get back to the Dimensional PortalTM and return to your home universe. You’re done, here.
JOHNSON: Well, I never! I thought I had been invited to a serious discussion of language usage, not some…some Survivor: Idiot’s Island!
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Sorry for that…unpleasantness. Strunk and White – you wrote the book on literary style. What are your thoughts on the use of the term “enhanced interrogation?”
STRUNK AND WHITE: I tend to agree with you that it is an abomination.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Thank you! That’s –
STRUNK AND WHITE: While, I tend to agree with Mister Johnson that we have to allow the language to evolve naturally.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: What?
STRUNK AND WHITE: What’s natural about a government creating a term to make light of its nefarious activities?
STRUNK AND WHITE: Are you suggesting that governments cannot legitimately coin terms when circumstances require them?
STRUNK AND WHITE: I’m saying that language should illuminate reality, not obscure it.
STRUNK AND WHITE: But, who are you to judge whether this term illuminates or obscures reality? Surely, the context –
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Uhh, guys…?
STRUNK AND WHITE: You always do this.
STRUNK AND WHITE: Do what?
STRUNK AND WHITE: Take a contrary position.
STRUNK AND WHITE: Take a – well, perhaps I would have no need to take a contrary position if the positions you took made some kind of logical sense!
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Guys?
STRUNK AND WHITE: I can’t believe I’m going to be forever known for having collaborated with the likes of you!
STRUNK AND WHITE: What do you mean, the likes of me?
STRUNK AND WHITE: I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I’m leaving!
STRUNK AND WHITE: You can’t leave! If you do, I –
LONG PAUSE.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Umm…George Orwell. May I call you George?
ORWELL: You may call me Mister Blair.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Oh. Are you ashamed by the associations that have accrued to your name?
ORWELL: Actually, that is my name.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: (pause) …Okay, then. In the novel Nineteen Eighty-four, you showed how governments used language to stifle the ability of citizens to think clearly. Would you agree that this is an egregious example of that?
ORWELL: I suppose I would if I still cared about such matters.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: (sighs) You, too? Is this finally too much for even you?
ORWELL: Actually, I gave up when you renamed your War Department the Department of Defence. I guess that was the best your government could do because I had already called dibs on “War is Peace,” but it’s almost as bad. The rest of the 20th century was a blur of misleading government pronouncements, blatantly false and/or meaningless commercial advertising and corporate jargon. Honestly, I can’t be bothered to keep track of it any more.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: I see.
LONGEST PAUSE YET.
BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: Language Corrector Dude? (pause) Psst! Language Corrector Dude!
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: What?
BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: Wrap it up!
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: What’s the point? My whole life has been built on the premise that words actually mean something. But, in meeting my linguistic heroes, I have actually been completely disabused of that notion. I think I’m going to ditch the bow tie and go into plumbing like my parents always wanted. Too bad they didn’t live long enough to see it.
BRUNDTLAND-GOVANNI: Okay. That was a conclusion…of a sort… Thanks.
LANGUAGE CORRECTOR DUDE: Yeah, whatevs…