[It might be because it's 5am and I'm drunk (okay, to clarify: IT IS 5am and I AM drunk) but this is a rare serious point. Enjoy?!]
...Hello.
Y'alright?!
I open like that because it's all in the intonation.
What I just wrote was exactly how a court stenographer would record it.
Now let's do it again, in the style of someone speaking to a woman in her late eighties:
Helloooooo!!
Y'ALRIIIIGHT?!
I'm out on a limb, here, but I'm pretty sure court stenography doesn't allow for elongated vowels and volume of speech, which is why it's patently ridiculous that, according to the 4am news, it's being suggested that patronising language be made illegal when dealing with the elderly.
Two nights ago, Christopher Plumber, aged 82, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and, in his acceptance, pointed out that the award itself was only two years older than he was. It was a pithy, charming, totally coherent speech by an octagenarian.
I bring Christopher Plummer up for a reason, too: He's my old man.
We're not related - he's not my dad and we're not married - but for some reason, whenever I read a work of fiction that describes an old man, I see Chriustopher Plummer in my head. It's either him, or Max Von Sydow, probably because they look very similar - at least these days, anyway - and are the same age (82) and when I'm reading a story and asked to picture an old man, I picture one or the other or an amalgamation of both. Christophax Von Plummow, I guess.
I should stress, also, that this only happens in my head when the old man in question is a prominent character. One who has importance to the story and important lines and such like.
It wasn't a conscious choice, for me, but, through numerous movies, Plummer and Von Sydow became prominent older actors in my experience, and therefore I cast them in my head whenever I'm asked to picture an old man.
I wouldn't dream of patronising either of these guys, and neither would I patronise, say, Clint Eastwood (82 as well, come May), but that's probably a lie because I patronise everyone. I did it in the column below by explaining what weasel words are, in the assumption that you, you fucking idiot, wouldn't already know.
Possibly because you're old.
More likely because patronising language cannot, by definition, be made illegal, as it's one of those things that we all do from time to time.
I'll give you an example: At the time of writing, I'm twenty-six. I run a bar. When I get to making small talk with customers, I often hear the phrase "So...... Are you studying anything?!"
No, I'm not. I worked for a living since the age of 18, thanks very much, and never attended a university. In fact, the only time I entered the halls of Bristol University was to move some furniture, when I was working as a van driver.
Queue the next bit of this conversation: "Really? You seem quite intelligent..."
Well, thanks. I make fire and use tools, which is a big deal. I'm even writing a blog as we speak, although this should never normally be taken as an indication of the ability to use fire or tools*.
Still, the assumption that I must be something more than a barman is insulting and belittling. I can make literally any drink a customer can name, from memory, eithout hesitation. I can count all the times I've been stumped with a request on the fingers of one hand.
So the inference that I'm "just a barman" is incredibly patronising to me, but nobody tries to make a law against it.
If you catch a London taxi and consider the driver to be "just a cab driver," that's immensely patronising, too, whether he's twenty-two or seventy-seven. Making laws against "being patronising" is the same as making laws against "being offensive." The criteria are so wide-ranging, and the resultant laws so flimsy, that it's a waste of everyone's time. Indeed, the most patronising thing about this whole idea is that it's only the elderly who should be protected.
I only have two heroes in life. One is Bruce Springsteen, which is a whole seperate issue, and the other is James Randi, a man who once said that "it is better to educate against stupidity than it is to legislate against it."
James Randi turns eighty-four this year. And he's right.
* 97% of the blogosphere is created by monkeys with typewriters, or by humans so stupid that they coin words like "blogosphere," and who envy said monkeys.
No comments:
Post a Comment