Institutional deafness? Archbishop, NO!

I do wonder if we take this business of speaking in metaphors too far. What happened to plain old English?
“Fallen on deaf ears” is a phrase that regularly pops up in the House of Commons. Since I have a standing search on the word “deaf” this means that I get told of every instance when it occurs, several times a year. Why can’t they just say “Nobody is taking any notice” ? Rather than waffle on about deafness and ears. What do they know anyway?

Oddly enough it is not acceptable, somehow to say “cloth eared politicians” meaning they are not giving a matter their attention. Only around Election time do they unbung their ears and take notice. In fact it is insulting to attribute a lack of hearing to people who are not taking notice. They have the option to change, we don’t.

The Press are partly responsible for a lot of this sort of thing because they are lazy. They invent jargon and metaphors for all sorts of things. For example “Buckingham Palace says….”. When did you last come across a garrulous building?
Downing Street says…. that means the Prime Minister has told someone to say it. Not the black door suddenly busting into speech.

Another one you see all the time is “Government does a U-turn”. Firstly the Government is basically an immobile organisation. It doesn’t collectively bomb up motorways and therefore is highly unlikely to need to turn round in the road and return. What is wrong with Government changes mind or Government rethinks its strategy? It’s lazy journalists, that’s wot it is. Mrs Jones, 36 living in her £350,000 house, father of three Fred Bloggs, 36, mother of twins 55. All short cuts to describing people who in fact may have far more to them than the metaphor suggests.

Here is another one that pops up every day “The Government has ruled out a change”. What is wrong with “The Government says NO” ? “Ruling out” is a procedure used to strike a phrase or even a paragraph from a body of written work, often in courts.
It was invented in the days before we had in erasers and consisted of drawing a line through the offending parts with a ruler. Ruled out parts were still legible but were intended to be ignored in practice. So this idea has spread to speech and we see TV announcers telling us what the politicians have ruled out today.

It is often said that some deaf people have a tenuous grasp of English. That probably extends to most readers of the Red Tops. Why then don’t such publications say what they mean in plain English? What with talking buildings and imaginary lines through words it’s not a surprise therefore that the Ordinary Bloke In The Street has little or no interest in politics.

And now we have this silly old twerp going on about deafness as if it is something that people have a choice over. Is it any wonder that the whole issue is badly understood? Try speaking in English and not the 400 year old stuff and maybe people will take more interest.

PS. Ears are not really made of cloth. They do however cease to function. Or you are just being ignored.
I know this little missive will fall upon deaf ears, I’m as much a slave to the habit as anyone. Except that it’s eyes in our case. Deaf eyes sounds ridiculous but it is factually true.
Ho hum. Funny old world….

I hope that none of us are tempted to accuse the bishop of being, ‘Blind in the face of the evidence’ or any such similar phrase.