kidattypewriter

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Prone to fafflatus, but still faffable.

After umpteen months at this typing and transcribing gig, I have finally put together a list of grammatical terms that may be used to described the great World of Wrong that is the modern media:

two-person monologue Technically, a two-person interview, in which, however, the interviewee doesn't even bother with the questions and just talks non-stop for the duration of the interview. They may occasionally pause for breath, or to give the interviewer time to ask further questions which the interviewee will then ignore.

public creaking An extremely tedious speech given by an extremely boring old politician or public servant (eg, Wilson Tuckey)

English as a second-hand language Dull talk given by an executive in the private sector in which they persistently substitute meaningless acronyms and ugly neologisms for relatively simple English terms and concepts.

fafflatus A politician with a high opinion of themselves but with poor intellectual and communication skills suffers from Fafflatus. This is, sadly, an all too common condition in the modern Australia.

in two absent-minds about When two vapid people are placed in the one radio studio together and proceeded to blab on (see Blabomination, below) about nothing in particular, they are said to be in 'two absent-minds about' the subject.
Variation: if the vapid people are in agreement, it is said that their 'two absent-minds are as one'.

blabomination A particularly terrible example of talkback radio. (Alan Jones is the Blabominal Bloman.)

squawkback A meaningless, but loud, argument between a caller and a presenter on talkback radio.

speaking in worst-person An egotistic politician or publicist who inserts the pronouns 'I', 'me', 'myself', into every sentence.

when Yoda meets Kent Brockman (also: Imperfect Unpresent tense) Phenomenon that occurs on country commercial television. The reporter begins to talk in half present-tense, half past-tense about events or people, often omitting crucial words and phrases.

Examples:
A driver remaining trapped in the twisted metal that was her car.

Emergency crews still very happy with the results of their work, considering what might have happened.

3 comments:

Caz said...

Public creaking?

Of which our PM leads us each day?

Legal Eagle said...

I love those words, Tim. I shall have to try to insert them into conversation over the coming weeks...

TimT said...

Thanks!

When I get excited, I'm prone to public squeaking, meself.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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